Money for Medical Center Intact Despite Budget Cuts

Despite budget cuts for some Los Angeles County health services, funding for the long-delayed completion of Olive View Medical Center in Sylmar survived intact this week as county officials presented their bare-bones, 1985-1986 budget.

The $140-million medical center, a pet project of county Supervisor Mike Antonovich, is scheduled to open in 1986. It will replace the original hospital destroyed in the 1971 Sylmar earthquake.

The medical center also will replace services now provided at the Olive View mid-Valley facility in Van Nuys, county officials said.

Under the budget plans disclosed Monday, the hospital’s $10-million first phase, including 21 medical and surgery beds, will open by June of 1986, with the gradual addition of 136 medical beds and 20 psychiatric beds by 1989.

Years of Delay

The hospital project, originally scheduled for completion in 1975, has been marked by years of delay and controversy.

County crews finally began building the hospital in 1975, only to halt the work in 1978 after the county instituted major budget cuts following the passage of Proposition 13.

Today, a steel skeleton stands on the hospital site near Interstate 210 and the facility’s price tag has nearly tripled from the original county estimate of $49 million, county officials said.

The county’s failure to complete the hospital became a major campaign issue for Antonovich in 1980 when he successfully challenged former Supervisor Baxter Ward. Since then, Antonovich has lobbied for county funds to finish the hospital.

However, a consortium of San Fernando Valley hospitals has opposed the medical center’s completion, arguing that existing Valley facilities can provide the same services for millions of dollars less than the cost of completing Olive View.