County Study Criticizes Plan to Close Hospital

Emergency medical response from San Pedro to Seal Beach will be “negatively impacted” if Long Beach Community Medical Center closes as scheduled in October, the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services has found.

That finding, part of a 157-page report to be presented to the Board of Supervisors next week, does not have the force of law and cannot stop the closure.

But it adds an official voice to a chorus of union leaders, residents and doctors urging that the 278-bed hospital in east Long Beach remain open.

The document also is likely to contribute to a barrage of criticism of the medical center’s nonprofit operator, the San Francisco-based chain Catholic Healthcare West. Healthcare West says it must close Long Beach Community because of five years of heavy financial losses.

Prepared by the Emergency Medical Services agency over the last month, the report acknowledges the financial problems, but nonetheless asks Catholic Healthcare West to explore all alternatives to closure, including a sale.

If the hospital closes, the harbor area will see slower paramedic responses to emergencies, longer travel times to hospitals and an increased volume of 911 calls from east Long Beach residents who will no longer have a nearby emergency room, the report predicts.

In addition, the loss of Community’s emergency room could be harmful in the event of a disaster, such as an earthquake or a plane crash at nearby Long Beach Airport.

“The closure does not serve the public’s best interests,” county health services Director Mark Finucane said in a letter that accompanied the report.

Although it plans to close 76-year-old Community on Oct. 2, Catholic Healthcare West has indicated a willingness to keep its license alive so that a new buyer could save the hospital. A “transition team” of Catholic Healthcare executives and Long Beach officials is expected to meet today to discuss how to keep the hospital open.

Among the proposals: Catholic Healthcare could operate the facility for an extra three months--through Dec. 31--or the city could take temporary control of the hospital while a buyer is sought.

On Tuesday, Catholic Healthcare executives said they were still reviewing the county’s emergency report and would reserve comment until an Aug. 8 hearing at the Board of Supervisors.

But in testimony at a public hearing last month, Catholic Healthcare’s chief operating officer, Jerry Kozai, disagreed with the concerns about medical care delays.

Long Beach Community’s emergency room treated 25,046 patients last year, including 3,493 brought in after 911 calls.

But Kozai said that half of those patients did not require urgent care. The rest, he said, could easily be absorbed by other area hospitals.

Long Beach Memorial Hospital is scheduled to more than double its emergency treatment facilities by the end of 2001, and Catholic Healthcare West’s own St. Mary Medical Center--four miles west of Long Beach Community--has extra room and could handle 11,000 additional visits, he said.

“We believe that the closure will not have a significant impact on the availability and accessibility of emergency medical services,” Kozai said.

But the county report questions whether St. Mary and Long Beach Memorial have adequate staffing to make good on Kozai’s contention.

Already, emergency rooms at those two hospitals are full as much as 20% of the time and divert patients to other medical centers, the report says.

The county health department calls for the Board of Supervisors to sign “a legally binding agreement” with Catholic Healthcare West committing the chain to making up Community’s lost capacity at the St. Mary emergency room.

The report also suggests that taxpayers may have to bear the costs of adding more 911 operators and ambulances to handle east Long Beach and Seal Beach residents who now walk or drive to Community.

The document offers few statistics on such additional costs or on the slower emergency response times.

But for Community neighbors such as 73-year-old Don Temple, county staffers privately predict that it will take at least five extra minutes to get to a hospital.

Temple survived a heart attack recently after being rushed by paramedics to Community.

“If that hospital wasn’t there,” he said, “ I don’t know if I would have made it.”