WESTLAKE VILLAGE : Threatened Hospital to Stay Open, Expand

After a month of speculation about the fate of Westlake Medical Center, the hospital’s new owners have announced that the hospital will remain open and will even be adding a new rehabilitation facility.

“We’re very pleased by the announcement, but we’re not surprised,” said Patrick J. McDonough, executive director of the Westlake Comprehensive Cancer Center, which has been inundated with calls since the hospital’s merger with the nearby Los Robles Regional Medical Center was announced last month.

“We’ve always felt that there was room for two acute-care facilities in the area.”

Columbia/HCA Healthcare, which owns Los Robles, bought the Westlake facility last week. Corporate officials met in Dallas this week to discuss plans for the Westlake hospital. The merger announced early last month led some to fear that the Westlake Medical Center would close down and transfer most of its services to Los Robles Regional Medical Center.

But instead, Los Robles officials announced that they plan to build a specialty center for rehabilitation on the grounds of the Westlake hospital, which sits across the Los Angeles County line.

The 18-bed facility would serve patients with traumatic injuries and is scheduled to open late next year. Neither hospital currently has such a facility.

Previous plans to transfer Westlake’s maternity department to Los Robles will remain in place. As of Oct. 15, Westlake will no longer have an obstetrics department.