Medical Center Doesn’t Want to Share Name

San Gabriel Valley Medical Center has been in business for more than 30 years, and officials at the 300-bed, private, nonprofit hospital in the city of San Gabriel are not about to share its name.

So they were a little vexed last week when Los Angeles County officials referred to a public hospital that has been proposed for Irwindale as . . . the San Gabriel Valley Medical Center.

“Patients were confused when they read about it in the newspaper. They wanted to know if we were moving,” said Pamela Kouba, spokeswoman for the real San Gabriel Valley Medical Center. She was referring to a report in The Times last week about the county’s hospital plans.

County officials apologized for the confusion--saying they considered the medical center name as merely “generic.” And they promised, henceforward, to call the public hospital proposed for Irwindale by another name.

East Valley Medical Center is one possibility.

“I don’t think there is an East Valley Medical Center,” said William Weitekamp, project manager for the proposed county hospital. “I’ll have to look it up.”

Finding a name isn’t the only tricky task in building a public hospital in the San Gabriel Valley. Irwindale officials have expressed concern that the site near the 605 Freeway that the county selected for the medical center is already being developed as an industrial park.

Not to worry, county planners say: They are confident they can find a way to acquire the industrial park, turn it into a hospital and give it a new name.