Austere County Budget Panned, Praised : Services: Reed says seven clinic closures would save $500,000 annually without hurting clients. But plan draws angry response.

Citing a need to streamline the public health care system, Los Angeles County’s top fiscal officer Monday proposed closing seven clinics, including two in the San Fernando Valley.

The recommendation by Chief Administrative Officer Sally R. Reed to shut down the seven clinics to help balance next year’s budget angered patients, health officials and advocates for the poor. They vowed to fight the proposal, which must be approved by the Board of Supervisors.

The clinics, located in Burbank, Tujunga, Hawaiian Gardens, Pico Rivera, Compton, Venice and Los Angeles, provide low-cost or free medical services to patients, who visited them about 9,000 times last year. They are among 45 health centers county-wide.

Reed said that closing the clinics would save about $500,000 annually in rent and utilities without hurting clients who depend on them for prenatal care, family planning and other services.

Nearby health centers, most of which are within five miles of the targeted clinics, would stay open later to accommodate extra patients, staffed by former employees of the shuttered centers, Reed said.

“There will be no loss of services,” Reed said. “There will be an impact to those who live closest to the clinics, but it will not cause anyone undue hardship . . . It’s an efficiency thing.”

But Chairwoman Yvonne Brathwaite Burke of the Board of Supervisors questioned the wisdom of closing the clinics to save only a fraction of the health department’s $4.3-billion budget.

“It’s shortsighted,” Burke said. “These clinics provide prenatal care and immunization against diseases, which saves us money in the long run.

“I think there are some other things we can do to raise $500,000.”

The board is set today to decide whether to schedule a public hearing on the issue in June. Already hard-hit by the Northridge earthquake, the Valley’s other public health centers would have trouble absorbing extra patients if the Tujunga and Burbank clinics closed, county health officials said. Two of the Valley’s nine clinics were condemned because of quake damage, including the largest health center, which is now operated out of a 5,000-square-foot trailer

“We’ve lost about 60% of our clinical space,” said Gretchen McGinley the Valley’s top health administrator. “Squeezing extra patients in is going to be tricky.”

Nurses at the Burbank Health Center said many of the 800 patients they treat every month walk to the clinic and would be unlikely to seek health care except in emergencies if the center closed because of their lack of transportation.

“This is the only place I go to,” said Julieta Alejo 39 of Eagle Rock as she cradled her month-old daughter during a postpartum visit to the Burbank clinic. “I depend on this health facility. I am jobless. I have nothing.”

Beth Osthimer, an attorney for San Fernando Valley Neighborhood Legal Services, said she and other advocates for the poor will testify against Reed’s proposal.

“Saying the closures won’t reduce services overall isn’t meaningful for people without bus fare,” she said.

David Langness, a spokesman for the Hospital Council of Southern California, said the closures are just the beginning of the county’s attempt to consolidate its health care services in the face of state budget cutbacks.

“These cuts are understandable, but they’re still regrettable,” Langness said. “The hospitals are concerned that the less primary care there is, the more unnecessary hospital visits there will be.”