County Health Care Chief Wessels Dies

Phillipp K. Wessels, who led Ventura County’s health care system out of financial disaster in the mid-1980s and oversaw the expansion of a network of clinics, has died after a bout with lung cancer.

Although Wessels’ illness had been diagnosed as terminal, his death was sudden and unexpected. He had been at work in recent weeks, appearing in good spirits.

But on Thursday evening, Wessels, 55, began bleeding internally when a tumor caused a major blood vessel to rupture, coroner’s officials said. He was pronounced dead at 10:52 p.m. at Santa Paula Hospital.

County leaders and co-workers Friday praised the director of the Health Care Agency for his personable leadership, business savvy and commitment to making health care accessible to the poor.

“He came from the private sector and understood the economics of how to run a health-care system in a business-like fashion,” said Richard Wittenberg, the county’s former chief administrator. “At the same time, he had a great deal of compassion for those that needed treatment and couldn’t pay for it.”

Wessels was hired by Ventura County in 1987 after working for five years as a hospital administrator in Stanislaus County. Previously, he worked for the Hospital Corp. of America, a national chain.

In Ventura, Wessels took over a county hospital suffering from a $12-million deficit caused by unpaid emergency loans from the county, an 18-month backlog in billings and an absence of leadership.

Within a year, Wessels and Pierre Durand, the current administrator of the Ventura County Medical Center, were credited with engineering a dramatic turnaround.

A $2.5-million computer system was purchased to streamline claims, 200 of the agency’s 1,200 employees were laid off and a quarter of the medical center’s beds were shut down.

The result was a $1-million surplus posted a year after Wessels’ arrival.

Former County Supervisor Madge Schaefer said the actions that led to the reversal won Wessels respect if not instant popularity.

“He knew in the long run that sometimes you have to do things that are painful to make things better,” she said.

“I kind of dubbed him the Clint Eastwood of the Health Care Agency,” she added. “He had to face some people down who were not doing their jobs.”

In recent years, Wessels pushed for a $51-million expansion of the Ventura County Medical Center, the county’s public hospital, and the privatization of satellite clinics throughout the county.

He also was instrumental in creating an in-house insurance plan that allowed county employees to seek treatment at the medical center and its clinics.

Wessels’ vision for the hospital was not without critics or controversy.

The private Community Memorial Hospital in Ventura filed suit against the county in July, accusing the county hospital of unfairly competing with the private sector for patients and neglecting its mission to serve the poor.

Michael D. Bakst, executive director of Community Memorial and Wessels’ chief rival in the public feud, described his counterpart as “an adversary one would respect and admire for his insight and intelligence regarding the health care industry.

“He was tenacious in his beliefs and the manner in which he presented his beliefs. . . . I feel a loss.”

Supervisor Maggie Kildee said she believes Wessels’ chief legacy to the county is the management team he assembled to run the various parts of the Health Care Agency, including public health, mental health and the public hospital.

“He gave them the freedom to run their departments,” Kildee said. “He called those people in and knew they could do a good job.”

Those within the vast agency remember Wessels as an administrator who took the time to meet his employees.

“He would stop by the office and call us by our first names, have a cup of coffee and chat,” said Jim Wingate, a deputy coroner who has worked for the county for 26 years.

Wessels lived with his wife, Pat, in Santa Paula. He is survived by a son, Jeff, who is a U.S. Air Force pilot based in Florida, and one grandson.

Skillin-Carroll Mortuary in Santa Paula is handling funeral arrangements.