La Habra’s Only Hospital Will Close Next Month
Friendly Hills Regional Medical Center, the only hospital in the city, will close May 15, its owners said Wednesday.
MedPartners Inc., the troubled Birmingham, Ala., company that owns Friendly Hills, said in a news release it was closing the hospital because it was losing money.
However, according to figures it reported to the state, Friendly Hills had a pretax profit of $36.2 million during the year ended Sept. 30, 1997.
A MedPartners spokesman could not be reached to explain the seeming contradiction.
The closure means there will be no place in the city to receive emergency health care, Mayor Dorothy May Rush said. Instead, people will have to travel to facilities such as St. Jude Medical Center in Fullerton or Brea Community Hospital.
MedPartners said that the 116,000 people served by its local doctors’ group will be sent to Whittier Hospital Medical Center and Placentia Linda Community Hospital. Both are owned by Tenet Healthcare Corp. of Santa Barbara.
MedPartners lost $840.8 million in the fourth-quarter of 1997. The company’s shares have lost half their value since January, when it disclosed the losses, which it blamed on a failure to recognize increasing medical costs.
In a joint announcement Wednesday, MedPartners and Tenet said the closure of the 274-bed hospital is part of a plan for the companies to expand their joint health care network across Southern California. Financial terms were not disclosed.
Hospital officials declined to comment on whether the hospital’s employees will be laid off or transferred to other medical centers.
The hospital employs more than 200, according to Inside Prospects of California, which compiles information on Orange County companies.
The move also makes uncertain the future of the local Meals on Wheels program, which delivers two meals a day to 60 homebound senior citizens in La Habra and La Habra Heights.
The nonprofit program has had all its free and low-cost meals--more than 600,000 since 1974--prepared in the hospital’s kitchen by a staff nutritionist.
Gregory J. Kind, the city’s director of community services who oversees the program, said officials started looking Wednesday for another agency to cook the lunches and dinners.
“Any time that you lose a resource like the hospital in your community, it definitely has an impact,” Kind said.
According to sources at City Hall, MedPartners was unsuccessful in selling the medical center.
The agreement with Tenet will increase the number of MedPartners members covered by their health care network to about 275,000.
During the year ending Sept. 30, 1997, an average of only 29.8% of Friendly Hills’ 274 beds were occupied, compared to an average occupancy level of 48.1% at hospitals nationwide.
The 13,000-square-foot Friendly Hills facility was opened 25 years ago and has had several owners. For a short time, it operated as a nonprofit hospital.
The closure is the latest cut MedPartners has made in Orange County.
In November, the company announced it would eliminate scores of jobs in several communities and close its Mullikin Medical Center in Westminster by next month.
In February, the Friendly Hills obstetrics unit, which averaged about 140 births a month, closed, and patients were referred to Whittier Hospital Medical Center.
Under their new deal, MedPartners and Tenet will collaborate to care for the 116,000 Friendly Hills patients and 45,000 MedPartners members served by clinics in West Los Angeles and the San Fernando Valley. Tenet will invest $15 million to upgrade medical facilities at the Whittier facility.
MedPartners operates about 140 facilities in Southern California, including more than two dozen clinics in 11 Orange County cities. The clinics operate under several names: Friendly Hills Medical Group, Talbert Medical Group, Gateway Medical Group and Mullikin Medical Centers. Friendly Hills Regional Medical Center is the company’s only acute-care hospital.
Its closure will be a loss for the community, said Doris Stoltenberg, a 60-year-old Whittier resident who uses Friendly Hills for emergency treatment. ‘It’s been there for years and has a reputation for being the city’s original hospital. Whenever a city has a hospital of its own, it’s a benefit.”
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Hospital Closure
La Habra officials are concerned that the closure of Friendly Hills Regional Medical Center will affect area emergency services. The closest hospital with an emergency room is Brea Community, 1.5 miles east of the Friendly Hills facility.
Friendly Hills Regional Medical Center
Owner: MedPartners Inc
Status: Private, for-profit
License category: General acute care with emergency room
Beds: 226
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Nearby Acute-Care Hospitals with Emergency Rooms
1. Brea Community Hospital, Distance: 1.5 miles
2. St. Jude Medical Center (Fullerton), Distance: 3.5 miles
3. Placentia Linda Community Hospital, Distance: 6.3 miles
4. Whittier Hospital Medical Center, Distance: 6.3 miles
5. Martin Luther Hospital, (Anaheim) Distance: 7.1 miles
6. Anaheim Memorial Hospital, Distance: 7.2 miles
Source: Healthcare Assn. of Southern California and Zip2.Com; Researched by JANICE JONES DODDS / Los Angeles Times
