Hardships Predicted If Health Center in Torrance Closes

A proposal to shut the Torrance Health Center has triggered concern that some low-income South Bay residents may lose easy access to services such as immunizations and prenatal care.

The county-run center is among 16 health clinics across Los Angeles County that could close under a cost-cutting plan to be reviewed this month by the County Board of Supervisors.

Housed in a graceful Spanish-style building near Torrance High School on West Carson Street, the center offers basic services such as immunizations and treatment for sexually transmitted diseases.

It has been a staple of public health in the South Bay for nearly 60 years, providing low-cost or free services to a mostly low-income clientele.

Shutting the center could force the poor to travel far afield for health care or forgo it altogether, according to some health care providers in the area.

“It’s going to be real hard for the area. They have quite a (patient) load over there,” said Donna Brown, executive director of the Harbor Free Clinic in San Pedro.

“It’s devastating because many of the people who use these facilities have no other resource or alternative care available to them,” added Dr. Harriet S. Kaplan, president of the Los Angeles County Medical Assn. district, which includes Torrance and nearby cities.

The 16 centers tentatively slated for closing are part of a network of 47 health centers across the county.

Closing the facilities is just one component of a sweeping county plan to shave $114 million in health care costs in the wake of state budget cuts. Other tentative cuts could reduce the number of county psychiatric beds, adult dental services and some emergency care.

Outpatient services may be slashed 25% at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center near Torrance, although details of exactly which programs are endangered were not available Friday. Some specialty clinics could be affected in what poses the most serious cutback in outpatient care at the hospital in years, said assistant administrator Cynthia Moore.

“This is the place of last resort for everybody,” Moore said. “If we don’t offer it, and health centers don’t offer it, where are they going to get it?”

The Torrance Health Center, less than two miles west of Harbor-UCLA, is one of the oldest health centers in the county network, health officials said.

Dozens of mothers, young children and babies crowded into the wood-beamed reception room last week, waiting for immunizations, while other patients waited in a nearby hallway.

The center reported a total of 26,707 “patient visits”--which includes repeat visits by the same patients--in the fiscal year that ended in June.

Immunizations are the single most popular service offered by the center, which also reported thousands of visits for tuberculosis testing and prevention, pediatrics and prenatal care and treatment for sexually transmitted diseases.

The total number of patients has been growing 5% to 10% a year, “and we have no reason to believe it’s going to stop growing,” said Dr. Patricia C. Hassakis, medical director for the Coastal County network of public health centers of the county Department of Health Services.

This is not the first time that county officials have talked of closing the Torrance center. Two years ago, a county study questioned the seismic safety of the 1932-vintage brick building, prompting discussion over whether it should be renovated or if services should be moved elsewhere.

About $1.2 million in renovations would be needed to make the building meet seismic and other codes, Hassakis said.

The county runs three other South Bay area health centers--in Wilmington, the Harbor area and Lawndale--that are within five or six miles of Torrance, Hassakis said.

But if the center’s staff is laid off, the county could be hard-pressed to duplicate its services at other centers, Hassakis said. The center has a staff of 24, including 13 nurses.

The County Board of Supervisors is not expected to act on the proposed cuts until Sept. 22.

“Every effort is going to be made to either reduce or avoid cutting health centers. That is going to be a very definite goal,” said Dennis Morefield, spokesman for Supervisor Deane Dana.

Some health care providers predict the loss of the center could boost the patient load at already overburdened free clinics. They said that it is easier and cheaper to fight disease with the preventive medicine, such as immunizations, that the center provides.

“It’s hard to believe,” Kaplan said, “that it’s cost effective to eliminate prophylactic care.”

The city of Torrance has maintained over the years that the center should stay open, said Mayor Katy Geissert. “We feel it would leave a tremendous void within the area if it were closed.”