New Building Proposed for County Hospital

Six months after voters rejected plans for a new outpatient center, Ventura County Medical Center officials are proposing to build a $28-million structure to replace aging facilities that they say threaten the hospital’s state license.

The Board of Supervisors on Tuesday will consider plans for a new two-story building to replace the 75-year-old county hospital’s kitchen and medical laboratory. The costs of the project include a three-story parking garage, demolition of existing buildings and relocation of utilities.

Supervisors John Flynn, Maggie Kildee and Frank Schillo believe the county hospital has no choice but to replace its kitchen and laboratory.

“The bottom line is we still have a problem,” Schillo said. “We could lose our accreditation. I don’t think the public really knows how much we are under the gun to get this mess cleaned up. We would be remiss in our responsibility not to do it.”

Representatives of rival Community Memorial Hospital, which led the referendum campaign in March to defeat the county’s proposed $56-million outpatient center, said they would not comment on the project until they had an opportunity to review the plans.

But officials of the nonprofit private hospital have said in the past they would fight any attempt by the county to expand its operations, which they see as a threat to their business. Community Memorial is pursuing a lawsuit to keep the county hospital from treating privately insured patients.

Roughly $17 million of the new county hospital project would be paid for with state grants. The balance would come from the medical center’s own budget as well as the county’s general fund over a 15-year period, officials said.

“This is a great opportunity for the taxpayers of the county to replace the infrastructure of the hospital,” said Pierre Durand, director of the county Health Care Agency. “I don’t think the taxpayers should be deprived of that opportunity.”

Durand stressed that the new county project is vastly different from what was proposed last spring, noting that the two-story building would not include an outpatient clinic.

“We are replacing facilities, not expanding,” he said.

Dr. Samuel Edwards, administrator of the county hospital, said the kitchen and medical laboratory are so outdated, cramped and structurally unsound that the medical center’s operating permit is at risk. Edwards said the sagging kitchen floor is in such poor condition that it has to be propped up by two-by-fours in some areas.

“That building would not last another year,” he said. “Its life is measured in months.”

The only reason the hospital’s operating license has not been revoked already is that it has been able to show state officials that a replacement plan is in the works, Edwards said.

“Every time they want to cite us, we haul out plans and show them what we’re planning to do,” he said.

If the project is approved, bond-like certificates would be sold within 60 days to finance the new building and parking garage, Durand said. The money would then be repaid with state grants and money from hospital revenues and the county’s general fund.

Community Memorial officials raised concerns about the county’s reliance on state grants in the spring campaign, saying that because of tightening state and federal health-care funding, the county could wind up shouldering the entire cost of the outpatient center.

But Durand said the state money is not threatened. He noted that 60% of the county’s new $9-million mental-health clinic was paid for with the same type of state grants that would be used for a kitchen and lab at the hospital.

“The money is solid,” he said. “We have no reason to believe otherwise.”