Forum on Feuding Hospitals Provides No Quick Answers

Ventura County’s first health-care forum looked almost like a peace summit Tuesday.

Despite their ongoing feud for survival in a competitive hospital market, representatives from Community Memorial Hospital sat cozily next to county officials. No voices were raised and the discussion among medical professionals from all over the county remained polite.

But despite that success, the forum provided no quick solution to the contentious battle between Ventura’s nonprofit hospital and its public counterpart across the street.

Community Memorial representatives had said earlier they would skip the consensus-building forum, which was organized by county Supervisors Frank Schillo and Judy Mikels.

When it was proposed in October, a Community Memorial spokesman had dismissed it as merely an attempt by the supervisors to win support for an improvement project at the county hospital, the latest in a series of county construction proposals the nonprofit hospital has blocked.

But Tuesday, Community Memorial’s supporters turned up in full force. In fact, there were too many of them to fit at the horseshoe-shaped discussion table.

Richard Reisman, a physician with staff privileges at the nonprofit hospital, and attorney Barry Silbermann won seats, while attorneys Jim Gross, Los Angeles-based spokesman Doug Dowie and Laura Dahlgren of the Community Memorial-sponsored Taxpayers for Quality Health Care group watched the proceedings from the audience.

“We’re curious,” Gross said.

When the facilitator-run session had ended, Gross’ curiosity remained unsatisfied.

Plans to meet again had been made, priorities voted on, lists of the “whats” and “hows” of health care were pinned to the walls, but the discussion mostly stayed generic, skirting the issue of how to end the continuing feud between Community Memorial and Ventura’s public hospital.

“I’m a little confused about where they want to go,” Gross said. “We’re open to the process, but I admit some confusion over the end goal.”

Others among the several dozen doctors, pharmacists, hospital administrators and other members of the medical community who attended the two-hour session agreed.

The forum was a good start, they said, but it barely brushed the surface of the complex relationships between the county’s various health-care providers.

“I don’t think we got into anything substantive,” said Ernest Carlson, a retired physician from Santa Paula Memorial Hospital. “I think this is necessary though. We certainly need some healing in the community.”

The main yield of the forum was a list of the top five issues facing the county’s health-care community. After coming up with 14 items, the 37 people on the panel voted to group the issues in order of importance.

Not surprisingly, the role government plays in the health-care process topped the list, followed closely by concerns over duplication of services and competition among the county’s facilities.

Also ranking high was the issue of the ever-growing numbers of patients without insurance.

The group agreed to meet again, probably in January, to continue the discussion.

The Community Memorial representatives raised the issue of whether Schillo and Mikels should organize the next session as well, saying they felt an impartial, unbiased third-party should run the meeting.

But finding someone impartial would come at a price, Mikels said.

“We’re going to have to pay for it,” she said.

And she didn’t let the dig at the supervisors pass unanswered.

“There is a difference between convening a meeting and running an agenda,” she said.

The dispute ended when Santa Paula Memorial Hospital board member Edwin Beach chimed in.

“I would certainly trust them [supervisors] to arrange a meeting,” Beach said. “If we don’t like what they did we can say so. I’d let them do it so I don’t have to.”

Physicians and administrators from St. John’s Regional Medical Center in Oxnard, Simi Valley Hospital, Ojai Valley Community Hospital and Santa Paula Memorial Hospital attended.

But conspicuously absent from Tuesday’s session were representatives from Columbia Los Robles Hospital, Columbia/HCA’s facility in Thousand Oaks. Just last week, executives from the giant conglomerate were discussing the possibility of joining a partnership with the county’s public hospital.

Pierre Durand, director of the county’s Health Care Agency, said he did not know why Columbia representatives missed the forum. But he said he was pleased with Tuesday’s new beginning.

“I think it is a step in the right direction.”