Tustin Hospital to Reopen in October

Tustin Hospital Medical Center, closed since March, 1996, will reopen in October with 200 to 300 employees, the facility’s owner announced Wednesday.

G&L; Realty Corp., a Beverly Hills real estate investment trust specializing in health-care properties, said it signed a five-year lease with Pacific Health Corp. to manage the hospital. Based in Long Beach, Pacific Health operates small and mid-sized community medical centers.

About 300 people lost their jobs when the 183-bed Tustin hospital was closed by its former owner, Healthcare America Inc., an Austin, Texas, company that had sought bankruptcy-court protection. Shortly after it was closed, G&L; acquired the acute-care institution and its 9.5-acre site for $4.5 million.

Daniel M. Gottlieb, chief executive of G&L;, said the hospital is in a good location but had suffered under a misguided strategy of targeting well-to-do patients.

“They tried to create what I call an executive hospital,” Gottlieb said. “They kind of missed the boat on managed care,” the prevailing practice in which health-care plans negotiate discounts in exchange for sending patients to a facility.

Jim Young, chief executive of Pacific Health, said the hospital will reopen with about 80 beds in its acute care and surgical area. He plans to add a nursing home and psychiatric unit shortly afterward.

The privately held hospital operator also runs Anaheim General Hospital, Hawthorne Hospital, Bellflower Medical Center, Buena Park Medical Center and Los Angeles Metropolitan Medical Center.

G&L; said it plans to begin leasing office space in two medical buildings adjacent to Tustin Hospital, which it acquired from Healthcare America. It also hopes to lease or sell a 90,000-square-foot parcel of vacant land next to the hospital to a developer of assisted-care living centers for the elderly.