County to Help Finance Hospital Expansion Design

The Ventura County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday agreed to help cover the costs of designing a new $50-million wing at the county hospital to increase outpatient care for the poor.

The supervisors agreed to loan $1.8 million toward designing a new wing that would replace deteriorating, asbestos-ridden buildings at Ventura County Medical Center and would double the space for outpatient care, said Phillipp K. Wessels, director of the county’s Health Care Agency.

Expanding outpatient services could help the hospital provide more medical care to MediCal recipients, who now make up 70% of the hospital’s patients, Wessels said. It could also help administrators save money by decreasing costly overnight stays of indigent patients.

“This will put us in a better position to focus on preventive care,” Wessels said. “There is an opportunity and a need to expand.”

If the county acts quickly, the hospital would be eligible for up to $35 million from a state fund set aside for medical construction projects, Wessels said.

“Even though we are in a tight financial position, the state is there to back us up,” Supervisor Maggie Kildee said. “We need to look to the future and not be frightened to do just Band-Aid stuff.”

The new wing would hold an internal medicine center and separate care centers for families, women and children, Wessels said. The older buildings that now house those centers would be torn down, he said.

The expansion plan will also include a new parking lot, Wessels said.

A completed building plan is scheduled to return to the board for approval by June of 1994. If the plan looks unfeasible or the state dollars evaporate, the supervisors have the option to drop the expansion project.

“This pocket of money from the state is an opportunity,” Supervisor Vicky Howard said. “But we haven’t embarked on a road from which we can’t turn back.”

If approved for construction, the new wing should be completed within five years, Wessels said.

Howard said she is more concerned about how the hospital will pay for ongoing operations and maintenance of the new wing than building it. “We have to make sure we can afford it,” she said.

An additional $1 million to fund the plan will come from the hospital budget, Wessels said.

Dan Hurlinger, president of St. John’s Regional Medical Center, welcomed any expansion that would increase the county’s ability to care for the poor.

“We look to them as the safety net for the community,” Hurlinger said. “We need to do whatever we can to get more access to care for people who really need it.”