2 Hospitals Approve Delay in Merger Plan : Health care: Postponement allows court hearing on consolidation of Camarillo facility with Oxnard center.

Pleasant Valley Hospital and St. John’s Regional Medical Center agreed Thursday to delay their merger by at least six days to allow a court hearing on the Camarillo Health Care District’s lawsuit against the planned consolidation.

Ventura County Superior Court Judge Frederick A. Jones set a hearing on the case for Feb. 3, six days after the Jan. 28 merger of the Camarillo hospital and the Oxnard medical center had been scheduled to occur.

Jones will decide Feb. 3 whether the allegations in the health care district’s lawsuit, which argues that the hospital merger would cause irreparable harm to Camarillo residents, justify setting a full-blown hearing on the matter.

The district is arguing that the merger would harm Camarillo residents because St. John’s would not allow sterilizations--such as tubal ligations--to be performed at Pleasant Valley Hospital.

St. John’s, owned by the San Francisco-based Catholic Healthcare West, forbids sterilization procedures on religious grounds.

Over the longer term, the hospital merger also would lead to Camarillo losing its only hospital, according to the health care district’s lawsuit.

St. John’s officials have committed to keep the Camarillo facility as a full-service hospital for at least five years after the merger.

Health care district officials on Thursday claimed victory, saying the hospitals’ attorneys agreed to delay the merger because they realize the district’s lawsuit has merit.

“It saves face” for the hospitals to agree rather than fight the postponement, district board member Jim Jeffers said. “We got what we asked for.”

But attorneys for the two hospitals said they consented to the delay to give them time to review the district’s lawsuit, which was filed Wednesday.

The hospital lawyers said they are confident that Jones will not delay the merger past Feb. 3, though they conceded that if the hearings drag on, St. John’s may withdraw from the deal.

“There is a point at which it will not work” for the medical center to pursue the merger, said Richard Simon, lead attorney for St. John’s.

Simon was one of seven Los Angeles lawyers at the hearing on behalf of the two hospitals, in contrast with the lone attorney representing the health care district.

Susan Hoffman, lead attorney for Pleasant Valley Hospital, said her team of lawyers will prepare for the February hearing by interviewing the various Pleasant Valley Hospital patients, doctors and medical consultants who have submitted testimony in favor of the health care district’s suit.

The list of patients who have submitted such testimony includes several residents of the Leisure Village retirement community, who argue that it would be expensive, inconvenient and possibly life-threatening for them to have to travel the extra eight miles to the Oxnard medical center.