Garden Grove Hospital Welcomed 2 Fertility Doctors : Medicine: Facility where they ran a clinic until 1990 is now part of a huge chain. Its officials are shocked by UCI’s list of possible improper transfers of embryos.

The community hospital where Drs. Ricardo H. Asch and Jose P. Balmaceda operated their now-closed fertility clinic for nearly four years is today a small part of a huge medical network.

The Garden Grove Hospital and Medical Center, 12601 Garden Grove Blvd., is owned by Tenet Healthcare Corp., the nation’s second-largest for-profit hospital chain. Tenet officials announced this week that they are stepping up efforts to buy more hospitals and physician groups.

The physicians--two of the three at the center of a scandal involving allegations of misappropriated human eggs, financial improprieties and research misconduct--were recruited to the Garden Grove facility in 1986. At the time, hospital officials were pleased to attract the doctors, who operated under a teaching affiliation agreement between UC Irvine and the Garden Grove hospital.

“They were renowned specialists,” said Garden Grove Hospital and Medical Center spokeswoman Marlene Burnett. “They were viewed as a big asset for the hospital.”

The doctors, however, left the Garden Grove clinic in 1990, as originally planned, in order to open the Center for Reproductive Health at UCI Medical Center.

On Saturday, UCI officials sent the Garden Grove hospital a list of 10 patients whose eggs or embryos might have been transferred without their consent. The news came as a shock to hospital officials, who had found no improprieties after a review of clinic records in May.

“When allegations first surfaced in May,” Burnett said, “we pulled what clinic records we have, but didn’t find anything. . . . We are at a loss.”

Today, more than 475 physicians practice at the 175-bed facility, which employs 500 professional, technical and administrative staff. The facility treats about 8,200 patients annually.

Tenet was formerly known as National Medical Enterprises but changed its name in March after completing a $3.3-billion acquisition of American Medical Holdings. As a result, the hospital changed its name from AMI/Garden Grove Medical Center to Garden Grove Hospital and Medical Center.

Santa Monica-based Tenet employs 68,000 people. It has 83 acute-care hospitals in 13 states and revenue of $5.1 billion annually.