Poison-Control Center to Close Its Doors in O.C.

In a move that health officials fear will strain already overburdened emergency medical services and lead to potentially fatal delays, UCI Medical Center announced Tuesday that Orange County’s only poison-control hot line will close in 30 days.

“This is very bad news,” said Dr. Philip Edelman, medical director of the Regional Poison Control Center, which receives about 51,000 calls a year from Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, Inyo and Mono counties. “There will be thousands of people who will call the poison center and not get an answer, and many physicians will be at a loss as to where to get information. It will be very serious and, potentially, devastating.”

Michele Rains, program analyst for state emergency medical services, said the closure would rock the state’s system of regional poison centers consisting of seven centers besides Orange County’s.

“This will have a tremendous impact,” she said. “I think it could cause some deaths.”

Edelman was notified Monday that the center will close its doors on May 8. The facility’s 10 employees--mostly physicians, nurses and pharmacists with special training in toxicology--have already received notices of termination, effective on that date, he said.

UCI officials described the decision to close the 14-year-old center as a painful one forced by financial necessity. The center costs about $800,000 a year to operate, they said, only $300,000 of which comes from the state. The bulk of the rest, they said, comes directly out of the medical center’s operating budget, which in recent years has suffered major financial reversals due to the increasing number of indigent patients the hospital serves, coupled with dwindling resources from the state.

“We need to continue to maintain financial viability,” said Laurie Bunnel, the medical center’s assistant executive director. “This is a program that we feel is important, (but) we (don’t) have the resources to keep it.”

The decision to close the center, Bunnel said, was made only after hospital administrators spent more than a year trying to locate alternative sources of funding. Among other things, she said, they asked for help from the counties that use the center’s services, approached the Hospital Council of Southern California and various physician groups, established a donation program for individuals using the center, piloted a program to bill insurance companies, sought the aid of the state emergency services authorities and proposed the establishment of a “900” line for use by poison victims and physicians. In the end, Bunnel said, all the efforts were ineffective.

The closure of the facility, she said, will leave only two poison-control centers in Southern California, one in Los Angeles and the other in San Diego.

The county’s Regional Poison Control Center, located in a trailer on the medical center grounds, acts as a sort of 24-hour clearinghouse where victims of poisoning and their physicians can get fast, clear, concise information by telephone about the seriousness of various toxins and how to administer their antidotes. The majority of calls it receives involves children, Edelman said.

Rains said she was working to locate another Orange County institution willing to take over operation of the poison center.

But in the absence of one, she said, most poison-related calls will probably go through the county’s emergency 911 system with two negative results. First, she said, the already clogged emergency system will be further burdened by calls to which fire and police departments will unnecessarily respond. And second, Rains said, poison victims may be denied quick information that in some cases could save their lives.

“It’s not good,” she said. “This is the first center to close without another facility to take over. It’s the first time that an area will be left unserved.”

Ironically, the announcement was made the same day that legislation was introduced in the state Assembly regarding the funding for poison centers statewide. AB3103, introduced by Assembly members Lloyd G. Connelly (D-Sacramento) and Jackie Speier (D-San Francisco), would assess special surcharges on the manufacturers of various products likely to cause toxic reactions.

“What it would do,” Rains said, “is provide stable funding for regional poison centers which, at this time, they don’t have.”

At the center in Orange County, meanwhile, it was business as usual Tuesday despite what Edelman described as an atmosphere of gloom and doom. There was a call from a doctor in Riverside County wondering how to treat a patient for a rattlesnake bite. Someone else wanted to know what do about some airplane fuel in his eye. And another worried parent called in, upset because her child had eaten a cockroach.

“I said not to worry about it,” related the employee who had taken the call. “It’s not toxic.”

Poison Help Lines

Orange County Poison Control Center: (800) 544-4404 or (714) 456-5988 (Until May 7)

Los Angeles County Drug Information and Poison Information Center: (800) 777-6476 or for the public: (213) 222-3212 for medical professionals: (800) 825-2722

San Diego County Regional Poison Center: (800) 876-4766 or (619) 543-6000