Struggling Canoga Park Hospital Closes

Financially troubled Canoga Park Hospital discharged its only five patients and closed its doors with little notice Friday, casting doubt on the future of the 72-bed private institution.

The facility in the 20800 block of Sherman Way is being renovated and will remain closed for at least six to eight weeks, said Jacque Boyle, an attorney for Canoga Park Health Services, which owns the hospital.

However, no renovation plans have been filed with the state, as required for remodeling projects that cost more than $10,000, said Derek Pogson, a spokesman for the Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development.

The tiny hospital, which opened in 1960, has been struggling for several years to survive in the increasingly competitive medical marketplace in the San Fernando Valley, where there is a surplus of hospital beds, according to local hospital administrators.

Boyle hinted Monday that the hospital, 30% of which is owned by physicians, may reopen under new ownership. In the meantime, it has requested that its state license be suspended for eight weeks, said Bob Karp, program manager for acute care hospitals for the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services.

“It’s my understanding that their financial difficulties just reached the point where the hospital’s board just said, ‘enough is enough’ ” and closed the doors, said Karp, adding that he believes any plans to remodel are an effort to attract patients or a buyer.

The closure is expected to have little impact on the county’s acute-care system because the hospital’s emergency room was not busy, handling about 30 ambulance patients a month, Karp said.

There were only a handful of patients remaining in the hospital Friday because some doctors for the past several weeks had been asked to send their clients elsewhere, Boyle said.

But he acknowledged that many of the hospital’s 54 employees were not informed of the closure until Friday morning. They have been given their salaries to date and placed on unpaid leave, he said.

“It was very sudden, quite a shock, actually,” said Dr. Sol Weiss, a physician--not one of the owners--who said he learned the hospital was closing at noon Friday when he arrived to retrieve files from the emergency room.

Officials at other local hospitals said Monday that they have not received many calls or applications from workers suspended by Canoga Park Hospital. But medical personnel, especially nurses, should have no problem finding employment because there are more job openings than trained workers in the county, said Susan Paulsen, human resources associate at Northridge Hospital Medical Center.

Canoga Park Hospital in June was among the first in the state to welcome chiropractors, who have long been ostracized by the medical profession. At the time, Dr. Russell Shields, chairman of the board of directors at Canoga Park, said the hospital had “marginal profitability.”