Health Center Moves to Temporary Facility

When the Northridge earthquake destroyed their facility in 1994, employees of the Mid-Valley Comprehensive Health Center were forced into tents and trailers in a parking lot, where they tended to patients’ needs.

Now that has changed, as elected officials, county administrators and medical staff gathered Wednesday to celebrate the dedication of a new temporary site in a six-story building at 8121 Van Nuys Blvd.

“After the earthquake, first we had tables, then we had tents, and then we had trailers,” said Ernest Espinoza, the center’s assistant administrator. “Now, I fully expect to recover the patients and services we had.”

While the center recorded 94,000 patient visits in the fiscal year before the quake, the number of visits has since plunged. Last year the center, the Valley’s largest county health clinic, recorded only 32,000 visits, Espinoza said.

After the January 1994 quake caused significant damage to the center, the five-story building at 7515 Van Nuys Blvd. had to be demolished.

Because of the loss, the center--which provides low-income patients with primary care, ambulatory care, women’s health services and immunizations--had to discontinue a number of services, including X-rays and ultrasounds.

With the new temporary facility, those services will be reinstated.

“With the same dedicated staff, we’ll be able to do a lot more for the community and provide the services they need,” said Melinda Anderson, chief executive officer for ValleyCare, the organization that the county has designated to work with its network of clinics and private facilities.

By February 2000, health center officials expect to move to a new permanent facility now under construction at the same site as the one destroyed by the earthquake, Espinoza said.