State Kept Valley Hospital Open Despite Damage Alert

The state’s chief agency for hospital safety allowed a San Fernando Valley hospital to remain open after its inspectors reported severe damage to its steel frame and warned it could collapse in an earthquake, state records show.

The agency is the Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development, or OSHPD, which permitted Holy Cross Medical Center in Mission Hills to continue operating while undergoing extensive repairs of structural damage suffered in the Northridge earthquake.

Though the $10-million project is three-quarters completed and the most badly damaged section of the four-story main hospital building has been fixed, the fact that Holy Cross has continued housing patients has raised concern among members of the state’s Seismic Safety Commission.

“I have heard engineers describe the damage at Holy Cross in such terms as ‘substantial’ or ‘severe.’ Those are the adjectives used. It was not described as minor or insignificant,” said Pat Snyder, a commission member.

The commission’s mission is to coordinate existing earthquake preparedness programs and recommend new ones. It annually updates the state’s five-year earthquake risk-reduction program.

“I want to know how it was judged that this building can stay open and others in the same condition cannot,” Snyder said, referring to a commercial steel-frame building in West Los Angeles that suffered structural damage and was recently voluntarily evacuated by its property managers.

The case comes to light as OSHPD is also facing criticism that it delayed getting structural engineers out in the field immediately after the Northridge earthquake, documents show.

According to an OSHPD draft report distributed in August, the agency did not get the engineers to three badly shaken Los Angeles area medical facilities until the third day after the temblor.

Holy Cross officials, however, said they had far less damage than state records indicate. They said that structural engineers they hired determined the hospital is perfectly safe to occupy and that, if anything, they deserve praise for the quality of their reconstruction efforts.

“At no time did Holy Cross’ structural integrity drop below code requirements,” hospital Vice President Victoria Snyder said in a statement. “The hospital’s initial decision to remain open after structural damage was identified was based on the expertise of our structural engineers and agreement of OSHPD.”

Strengthening of Holy Cross is being done in five phases, Snyder said, with patients, staff and visitors being cleared from each of five areas before work begins.

The Northridge earthquake hit hard at Holy Cross, where the main hospital building was constructed to double-strength safety standards after its predecessor was heavily damaged in the devastating 1971 Sylmar temblor.

Water damage immediately after the Northridge quake forced evacuation of the building’s 257 beds. It partially reopened in time for a Jan. 24 visit by Gov. Pete Wilson and then resumed most operations on Feb. 10.

It was not until late March that engineers began scrutinizing the hospital’s steel-frame structure, which they at first had assumed held up well in the quake. State officials note that Holy Cross’ condition was not unique and mirrored that of scores of other steel-frame buildings in the region.

According to Bill Staehlin, a principal structural engineer at the Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development, the closer look revealed signs that a large number of joints in the steel frame had broken.

“The building was found to be out of plumb,” Staehlin said, “It was no longer standing vertical.”

One of the first inspectors on the scene was Donald Jephcott, a consulting structural engineer who recalled Holy Cross’ state-of-the-art construction in the mid-1970s. In a rare move for the period, hospital owners had commissioned a high-tech study of how the ground might move in the event of another serious quake, he recalled.

In field notes filed April 4 with OSHPD’s principal structural engineer, Sharad Pandya, Jephcott described what he saw as “a serious situation.”

Sixteen of the 23 connection points examined at that early stage, about 70%, showed some damage, his report said.

“I am concerned about the ability of the building to resist seismic forces that this site is capable of generating in the case of another major earthquake,” Jephcott wrote.

“If the percentage of damaged connections that has been uncovered so far in the survey holds for the remainder of the structure . . . then its capacity has been considerably reduced and I would question allowing its continued occupancy,” he noted.

According to a draft report prepared by OSHPD and submitted in August to the state Hospital Building Safety Board, the percentage of damaged connections did not drop much after further inspections.

The report said Holy Cross’ steel frame “suffered severe damage at a large number of joints.” Out of 209 joints inspected, the report said, 125 failures were found--for a 60% rate.

“This is a very serious development since in hospitals and other large buildings, heavy welded connections have been used for many years,” OSHPD’s report noted.

Holy Cross’ Victoria Snyder said that, as far as the hospital is concerned, the figures in OSHPD’s report are incorrect. Further, she said, the use of the word “failure” is misleading.

Of Holy Cross’ 283 connections, Snyder said, only 24 required major repair, with only nine of those categorized as “severely damaged.”

Those numbers clashed with findings reported to Snyder by the hospital’s engineers in an April 22, 1994, letter. At that date, 204 of the joints had been inspected, revealing distress to 92. Fifty of those had suffered substantial damage, the letter said.

As for the definition of a “failed” joint, state officials said the term is meant to include a range of damage, from small cracks to more significant problems, such as total separations.

By May 3, Sam Moon, OSHPD’s supervising structural engineer, had issued a sternly worded letter to Holy Cross’ engineering firm, Taylor & Gaines, stating that the hospital could collapse if another temblor struck.

“According to some very brief reports OSHPD has received so far, a large percentage of the connections have failed,” Moon wrote, asking for justification as to why the building’s occupancy permit should not be withdrawn.

“The ability of the damaged buildings to resist another earthquake is questionable,” the letter said.

Snyder said Moon’s letter was premature, written before a final evaluation of the building’s condition was complete.

In an interview, OSHPD’s Pandya said the purpose of the letter was “to put the hospital on the spot to take responsibility for what was happening.”

After receiving plans detailing Taylor & Gaines’ reconstruction strategy, OSHPD was satisfied, Pandya said. “Then we felt there’s no reason not to believe in their opinion,” he said.

But members of the Seismic Safety Commission said it was a mystery why OSHPD would retreat from the findings issued by its own experts. Commissioners voiced concerns over whether the agency, apparently dismissing its staff’s opinions, was adequately protecting the public.

They also questioned whether OSHPD is aware of its authority to shut down damaged acute-care facilities.

Saying it needs a tool with which to hold OSHPD more accountable in the future, the commission drew up a recommendation that the governor reiterate OSHPD’s emergency powers in clearer terms.

“Sometimes government has to play a role that is not very pleasant,” said commission staff member Fred Turner, a structural engineer. He said that OSHPD has a policy “of being a team player” in dealings with the hospitals it oversees.

Underscoring that relationship are at least two shared connections between Holy Cross and the state agencies involved in its reconstruction.

To do its reconstruction, Holy Cross hired Pozzo Construction Co., whose president, E.P. St. Geme, is one of 16 members of the Hospital Building Safety Board appointed by OSHPD’s director. Among other things, the board rules on appeals of cases involving seismic safety of hospitals.

Holy Cross also has selected the architectural firm HMC Group to do its master planning. HMC architect Gary L. McGavin is a member of the Seismic Safety Commission and had to excuse himself from the discussion of Holy Cross during a Dec. 8 commission meeting, citing a possible conflict of interest.

Turner said the commission did not intend to single out Holy Cross, especially in light of the fact that no one has been harmed by the hospital’s decision to stay open.

“Apparently they were able to undertake the repairs while the hospital is in operation without endangering the patients,” he said. “But in other circumstances in the future, we need a state agency that clearly has the authority to act decisively.”

Holy Cross’ may be the first known and the highest-profile case of substantial steel-frame damage in an area hospital, but it is not the only one. The Seismic Safety Commission’s report to be presented to the governor also says such damage is being uncovered at Henry Mayo Newhall Memorial Hospital in the Santa Clarita Valley.

Commission staff members and OSHPD officials say not as much is known yet about the damage or proposed repairs at that hospital. State officials are still reviewing reconstruction plans for Newhall Memorial, which remains open upon the assurances of its structural engineers that it is safe for patients to occupy.

“People are just now beginning to find out the extent of this damage,” said Kurt Schaefer, deputy director of OSHPD’s facilities division. “Not just at Henry Mayo Newhall hospital, but across the industry.”

In defense of his agency’s decision to allow Holy Cross to continue operating, Schaefer said that assessment of damaged steel frames is still an inexact science and the subject of ongoing intense research.

“We are still struggling with what the best solution is,” Schaefer said. “We know for a fact that these structures--even though the joints failed--they did not collapse. People weren’t killed; they weren’t maimed.”

Because of a shortage of structural engineers on its staff, Pandya said, OSHPD has to rely on the opinions of independent firms hired by the damaged facilities themselves.

According to the OSHPD draft report distributed in August, the three-day delay in getting inspectors out to St. John’s Hospital and Health Center in Santa Monica, AMI Tarzana Regional Medical Center in Tarzana and Berkeley East Convalescent Hospital in Santa Monica left them open for business longer than was safe. The buildings weren’t red-tagged, or declared unfit for occupancy and evacuated, until Jan. 20.