Hospital Will Not Close Burn Center
A spokeswoman for Torrance Memorial Hospital Medical Center said Wednesday that the hospital is not planning to close its burn center.
The statement comes a day after Los Angeles County Supervisor Deane Dana said that he would ask his colleagues to increase lobbying in Sacramento to raise funds to pay for treating uninsured burn patients. Dana said his concern stemmed from a memo from county Department of Health Services Director Robert Gates that said Torrance was considering closing its burn unit because of financial losses.
The memo makes the situation seem “more threatening than it really is,” hospital spokeswoman Laurie Blue Lundberg said Wednesday. “We are not planning to close.”
Lundberg acknowledged that since January the burn center has provided about $1 million in unpaid services and that the situation is worsening.
Start your day right
Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
