Charter Hospital to Close Area Facility

As part of a move to cut back on operations throughout highly competitive Southern California, Charter Hospitals has announced that it will shut down its Thousand Oaks facility by early June--leaving 94 employees out of work.

The nation’s largest behavioral health-care company, Atlanta-based Charter decided to shut down half of its six psychiatric hospitals in this region. The Thousand Oaks, Long Beach and Yorba Linda facilities will close, while the Mission Viejo, Corona and Covina facilities will remain open, according to spokesman Joel Weiden.

“We decided the best use of our resources would be to consolidate our operations to three sites in the area,” Weiden said. “I don’t know why the specific locations were chosen, but it was a difficult decision based on the number of psychiatric hospitals already in Southern California.”

The 80-bed Thousand Oaks facility on Via Merida opened in 1990. All of its employees will receive severance packages and will be considered favorably for other jobs throughout the Charter Hospital system, which will still operate 99 facilities in 31 states, Weiden said.

The Thousand Oaks Charter Hospital plans to transfer all patients and stop accepting new patients April 15. It will close down permanently June 9, Weiden said, adding that there are no immediate plans to sell the building.