UCI Medical Center Closure Threatened
The article on the possible closing (May 4) of UCI Medical Center as a result of the underfunding of indigent medical care in Orange County brings to attention the disastrous lack of a health care policy on all three levels of government--county, state and national. While our legislators tell us that health care is a top-level concern on their list of priorities, nothing has been done to stop the hemorrhage on the balance sheets of our hospitals. It is time the problem was addressed.
If this community loses UCI Medical Center, it will lose the only teaching hospital in Orange County, the only Level 1 trauma center, the only poison control center and one of the best neonatal intensive care units in the country, among other important services. Orange County citizens must begin to appreciate the importance of having an academic medical center nearby. No other hospital, despite aggressive building programs and promotion, can claim to be a teaching hospital.
This community must rally behind UCI officials to help restore the financial health of this precious resource. Our county Board of Supervisors needs to hear that health care is as important to us as freeways, and our state legislators need to know that if the health care system breaks down in Orange County, we will hold them fully accountable.
This crisis not only affects the poor of Orange County, it affects all of us.
STEVEN A. ARMENTROUT, M.D.
Professor of Medicine,
UC Irvine
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