Campaign Fails to Oust Board of Ailing San Pedro Peninsula Hospital

A month of controversy over who should control financially ailing San Pedro Peninsula Hospital ended in less than half an hour Tuesday night when an effort to replace the present 15-member board of directors collapsed.

Members of San Pedro Peninsula Health Services--the community corporation that owns the hospital and elects the board--overwhelmingly voted to support the present board. As a result, a dissident group of corporate members never offered its expected motion to recall the board and elect its own proposed slate of directors.

In making the motion of support, John Greenwood, a former member of the Los Angeles Unified School District board, called hospital directors heroes and said they have provided a “strong voice of leadership” in solving hospital problems that led to an estimated $8 million in losses during 1987 and 1988.

Of 229 corporate members who packed the hospital auditorium for the special election meeting, only six opposed the motion of support in a show of hands.

Robert L. Hansen, chairman of the dissident Committee to Save San Pedro Peninsula Hospital, conceded that the group lost its battle to persuade the community that the present board is unable to solve the hospital’s problems. The committee has contended that those problems could lead to bankruptcy or a takeover by a profit-making chain.

At the same time, Hansen said he believes the committee members who successfully petitioned for the meeting succeeded in their purpose of informing the community about the hospital crisis.

“The severe financial condition of the hospital is now open and obvious to all of the current board of directors, whose duty it is to correct the condition,” he said.

Larry Orosz, hospital board chairman and an emergency room physician at the hospital, made a strong case for the board. “The board has not done a perfect job, but it is willing to learn,” he said in opening the meeting. “This is better than replacing them with others that we do not know,” Orosz said, referring to the committee’s proposed slate of directors.

Launched more than a month ago when petitions were filed calling for the special board election, the fight for control of the hospital got into high gear last week when the hospital board and executives labeled the election meeting a “hostile takeover” attempt that could destroy the 64-year-old community hospital.

Hospital officials have said steps already are being taken to put the troubled hospital back in the black. They also speculated that the dissident group might be planning to sell the hospital or bring back the former president, Rodney Aymond, who was forced to resign Jan. 25 after the board blamed him for management problems. Hansen denied those charges.

Despite the acrimony that preceded it, Tuesday’s meeting had an atmosphere of conciliation.

“A lot of good has come out of this,” Orosz said in his opening statement. “One benefit is that attention has been brought to bear on (the hospital’s) problem.”

He said “there will be better communication” with the community, including annual or semi-annual meetings of the corporation, which Orosz said has not met for at least 15 years. Corporate members have voted for hospital directors by mail.

Hansen said harmony is needed to solve the hospital’s financial crisis, adding that the committee “will support the corrective action of the board of directors” while remaining “vigilant and concerned.”

However, Tuesday’s atmosphere of conciliation is not being extended to a lawsuit filed last week in Long Beach Superior Court by a group of San Pedro cardiologists aimed at identifying authors of an anonymous nine-page document circulated in San Pedro during the hospital battle.

The document asserts that the hospital pays above-market rates to physicians for certain contract services and that a “power group” of physicians benefiting from these contracts controls the hospital for their own benefit. The citizens committee denied authorship, but Hansen said the committee agrees with the document’s contents.

Dr. Bruce N. Goldreyer, chief of staff at the hospital and a member of the medical group that was named in the anonymous document, said the suit will be pressed because it “bears no relationship” to the hospital corporation or makeup of the hospital board.

“It is a conspiracy to interfere with my ability to practice, to defame me and my practice, that began before the recall attempt,” Goldreyer said. He said he believes some people associated with the citizens committee are involved.

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