200 Beg Ventura Supervisors Not to Close Public Health Centers

Impassioned speakers, some wearing black armbands and bearing a quarter-mile-long petition, pleaded with Ventura County Board of Supervisors on Thursday not to close some of the county’s public health centers and gut the county’s 100-year-old health network.

In a packed hearing room, patients, physicians, attorneys and others who testified predicted that the county’s attempt to eliminate a looming budget deficit will backfire, imperiling the lives of thousands of county residents and costing the county more in the long run.

“The cuts will cost you more in the end and much more in human terms to the people in the county,” predicted Amy Albano, attorney with Channel Counties Legal Services Assn., who characterized the proposed cuts as “life-threatening.”

“The message the county is carrying is, ‘We don’t care,’ ” Albano said.

Little Comment From the Board

The supervisors mostly listened to the testimony without commenting, but at one point, chairwoman Maggie Erickson said, “It’s hard to face people whose lives are affected. We hope all in this room will sense the caring and compassion of the board.”

The state-mandated hearing was convened to allow residents to comment on the $6.6 million in health-care cuts proposed to balance the county’s $492-million budget for the 1987-88 fiscal year. The county is suggesting eliminating six health clinics, in Simi Valley, Moorpark, Oxnard and Ventura; reducing beds at the Ventura County Medical Center; laying off 285 health employees, and reducing mental-health services.

Richard Wittenberg, the county’s chief administrative officer, started the hearing by presenting the 200 in the audience with a bleak financial picture. “We’re basically at a crisis juncture because of factors almost totally beyond our control,” he said.

Wittenberg blamed dwindling federal and state subsidies, increasing malpractice insurance costs and rapidly growing patient loads as factors contributing to the county health-care network’s financial crisis. Critics have also alleged that county mismanagement aggravated the problem.

Lack of Good Choices

“It’s a grim prospect for the board of supervisors,” Wittenberg said. “They have a number of choices . . . but they are all bad choices.”

The county’s financial experts told the board that the clinics would have to close unless county officials find another $1.9 million.

The board was presented with a 440-yard-long petition containing 12,000 signatures of residents urging the board not to institute the health cuts. An identical petition, wrapped as a scroll, also was delivered to the office of Gov. George Deukmejian. Last week, the governor vetoed millions of dollars earmarked for the counties’ health programs that the Legislature had included in the state budget.

During the public hearing, one of the most poignant pleas came from Christine Barrios, a 29-year-old Ventura resident, who has been receiving mental-health guidance from the county. Barrios said she fears she might end up at a mental hospital if her neighborhood mental-health clinic closes.

“If I go back into my depression, I will cost you a lot more money,” she said.

Barrios, who said she had been suicidal in the past, told the board members, “The last time I begged, I said, ‘Please let me die.’ Now I’m begging you, don’t let me die.”

Fears of a Turn to Folk Medicine

Dr. Theresa Enriquez, who works at the Oxnard clinic, warned the board that some Hispanic patients will turn to folk medicine if the clinics are closed. Her clientele, which is up to 90% Hispanic, might seek treatment from unauthorized Mexican doctors who work out of homes and use traditional Mexican cures that can be harmful.

Those who testified also noted that it would be nearly impossible for patients in Moorpark and Simi Valley to receive medical treatment at the Ventura County Hospital if their clinics are closed. There is no bus service from Ventura to Simi Valley and Moorpark, and a one-way taxi ride is about $100.

Supervisor Madge Schaefer criticized the state legislators from Ventura County who did not send representatives to the hearing despite requests. Only staffers from the offices of state Sen. Gary K. Hart (D-Santa Barbara) and Assemblyman Jack O’Connell (D-Carpinteria) attended.

The legislators’ absence, Schaefer noted, “sends a very clear message. We indicated it would be very important for them to hear our mutual constituency.”

The board is expected to vote on the 1987-88 budget next week.