Westlake ER Closed Before License Expired

As negotiations between the seller and prospective buyer of Westlake Medical Center continued to founder Friday, a county health department official said the hospital’s owner, Columbia/HCA, is licensed to operate an emergency room through today even though the company chose not to.

While residents of the tony communities from Thousand Oaks to Calabasas served by the hospital watched in dismay, Columbia shut down the emergency room at Westlake at midnight Tuesday, saying the hospital’s license had expired.

The unpopular closure of the emergency room came just hours before the buyer, cancer specialists Salick Health Care, won a court injunction to keep the hospital functioning at status quo while negotiations continue. A hearing on that is scheduled for July 18.

After learning of the injunction, angry residents had stormed into Columbia executive Bill Noland’s Westlake office Wednesday to demand that the emergency room be reopened. They contended that Columbia, which also owns nearby Los Robles Regional Medical Center, is trying to eliminate its competition by shutting down the community hospital at Westlake. Residents say they also fear that lives will be lost if ambulances have to travel the extra miles down the freeway to Los Robles.

Noland said Wednesday that the Tennessee-based conglomerate was no longer licensed to run an emergency room and had no plans to reopen one. However, a licensing supervisor with the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services confirmed Friday that the company actually still had four days on its license at that point.

“The license expires 7/6/96,” said supervisor Eric Stone, adding that Columbia’s license is for a 126-bed general acute care facility, which includes an emergency room.

Columbia officials maintain they have not violated the court order because the emergency room had already been shut down by the time the injunction was issued.

“Licenses expire as a matter of duration,” said Ronald Phelps, a Columbia executive. “You get a driver’s license, it has a date when it expires. But you can quit using your car before then if you choose. We chose to shut down the emergency room before the license expired.”

Dr. Bernard Salick, chief executive officer of Salick Health Care, said he will keep an eye on activities--or lack thereof--at Westlake. He said he has cancer patients booked to use the Salick Comprehensive Cancer Center--now operating out of leased space at Westlake--in the next few weeks who will require the acute care services of the hospital.

“If they close it on the sixth, that is not what the judge said,” Salick said. “The judge had ruled that they have to keep it open.”

Phelps declined to comment on ongoing discussions between the two corporations.

But Salick said negotiations for the $8.15-million sale broke down earlier this week after Columbia asked for restrictions on what the cancer specialists could do with the property.

According to Salick, these restrictions would have limited the types of technology Salick could use, as well as stopping the new owners from treating any patients except those with cancer and immune deficient diseases or those who need dialysis or organ transplants.

“I think people have to consider very carefully what the implications are of a hospital group coming into any community and shutting down the other vendors,” Salick said. “That is why laws about antitrust have been mobilized. The actions here bring all those questions into play.”

Salick said he still wants to buy the Westlake facility. He also said he had offered to run an emergency room at Westlake, but that he would have been prohibited from doing so by the terms of the sale.