Helping Hand for Inyo

Anyone who has driven from Los Angeles to Mammoth for skiing, or the Mt. Whitney region for some backpacking, knows the meaning of wide-open spaces. It is a unique experience for an Angeleno to drive for miles without seeing much more than a jackrabbit. But the distances between towns would take on an ominous meaning in the event of serious accident or illness, for there is only one small hospital in the stretch of nearly 200 miles between Ridgecrest in northeastern Kern County and Bishop. And unless a considerable amount of money is raised soon, that institution, the Southern Inyo Hospital in Lone Pine, will be forced to close.

The hospital has been losing $6,000 to $25,000 a month, and is getting by on loans from Inyo County and donations. But the county is unable to lend more money, and unless $75,000 is raised soon the hospital could not meet its second January payroll and would have to shut its doors.

The community is rallying. By Christmastime, about $9,000 had been donated to the hospital cause, much of it in $25 contributions. The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power tentatively has pledged $50,000 in support for each of the next two years, contingent on a realistic hospital budget that will put the facility on the road to self-support. Hospital officials are drafting such a budget now. With the city money, and the new donations, the hospital could match a potential state grant of more than $100,000. The hospital would survive.

The City of Los Angeles has a particular interest in keeping the hospital open. A 90-mile ambulance trip from the Lone Pine area to either Bishop or Ridgecrest could be a life-or-death matter for a DWP employee in need of emergency-room service. The city already helps support the hospital through its unique agreement to pay property taxes to Inyo County on the thousands of acres of land that it owns in the Owens Valley. Public agencies normally are exempt from such taxation. Much of the water and electric power that Los Angeles consumes, of course, originates on DWP land in the Owens Valley.

The tentative offer of aid from Duane D. Buchholz, the Los Angeles Aqueduct chief in the region, is a welcome gesture, given the history of animosity between the city and Owens Valley dwellers. Los Angeles water and power commissioners should support the Buchholz effort and consider doing even more should the current fund-raising drive fall short and if there is a prospect that the hospital can make a reasonable dent in the budget deficit in the next several years.

With a small investment, the City of Los Angeles can be a life-saver for Southern Inyo Hospital. Almost assuredly, a thriving Southern Inyo Hospital would be able to return the favor someday, when it was most needed.