Officials Say Merger to Spare Care of Poor

Administrators for UCI Medical Center, which cares for most of Orange County’s poor children, assured worried community leaders Wednesday that a planned merger of its pediatrics department with Childrens Hospital of Orange County will not leave 2,500 indigent children without care.

Administrators for both hospitals said the July 1 relocation of UCI Medical Center’s outpatient pediatrics department to the grounds of the privately run Childrens Hospital will allow treatment of poor patients now served at the medical center to continue.

But they would not say where the estimated $560,000 needed annually to provide this care would be found.

No One Turned Away

“CHOC now does not turn anyone away for a lack of ability to pay, and this will not change following the merger of the two departments,” CHOC spokeswoman Maureen Williams said after the meeting of a dozen representatives of community groups and hospital administrators at Childrens Hospital in Orange.

But Williams added: “We can’t serve every single indigent person in Orange County.”

Others who attended the nearly two-hour meeting said it is unclear where money would be found to cover the annual cost of treating poor children. About 2,500 were cared for at the medical center last year. The medical center’s outpatient pediatrics clinic ran up a deficit last year of $560,000, hospital officials said. The state has been making up this shortfall but is not expected to do so after the merger.

Under the merger plan, most of the medical center’s pediatrics department, now on the grounds of its 493-bed hospital in Orange across from The City Shopping Center, will be relocated to Childrens Hospital. However, the neonatal and pediatric intensive care divisions will remain at the medical center.

The meeting was requested by an ad hoc coalition of community groups that have expressed concern that the merger would jeopardize health care for poor children.

The community groups included the Orange County Human Relations Commission, the United Way Health Care Task Force, the League of Women Voters, California Health Decisions and the Orange County Task Force on Indigent Health Care.

Representing the hospitals were Harold W. Wade, chief executive officer of Childrens Hospital, and Dr. Edward W. Quilligan, dean of the UC Irvine College of Medicine.

A letter drafted on behalf of the coalition by Jean Forbath of the Human Relations Commission spelled out the group’s concerns. She also posed more than 20 questions about how the merger will be implemented and where the funds to care for indigent children will come from.

In her letter, Forbath claimed that Childrens Hospital “takes the fewest number of Medi-Cal patients of any children’s hospital in the state.”

In contrast, the letter noted that 80% of UCI Medical Center’s patients are Medi-Cal patients. Forbath questioned whether Childrens Hospital was willing--or financially able--to take on that caseload.

Those interviewed after the meeting did not question the commitment of Childrens Hospital administrators to indigent care. But some expressed reservations about whether money could be found to implement the plan.

Williams said the deficit that the merged program will inherit from the medical center will be met by increased fund-raising efforts by Childrens Hospital.

Community Support

“We have a large base of community support, with 14 women’s support groups and one men’s support group,” Williams said.

“Through this private fund-raising and increased allocations from the United Way, and new financial assistance from county government, we believe that we will be able to handle the shortfall.”

But Ellen Severoni, executive director of California Health Decisions, a health-care advocacy group, said Childrens Hospital administrator Wade was “ambiguous about whether Childrens would pick up this deficit.”

Wade--who asked a reporter to leave the meeting, saying it was private--declined to be interviewed Wednesday. UCI Medical Center administrators could not be reached for comment.