Tobacco Funds Ballot Initiative

* Re “County Plans for Possible Fight With Hospital,” May 14.

Community Memorial Hospital is willing to spend $1.6 million to promote its initiative and Ventura County is willing to spend big bucks fighting it in court.

Wouldn’t health care in Ventura County be greatly improved if all this money were spent on health care?

BETTY C. BLACK

Ventura

* Community Memorial Hospital executive director Michael Bakst’s threat to use the initiative process to grab tobacco settlement funds is another prime example of why the initiative process should be done away with in California.

BOB SCOTT

Oxnard

* I moved to Ventura County in 1986 and worked at UCLA Medical Center’s emergency room. Because of the long commute I left UCLA in 1988 and obtained employment as a registered nurse on a daily basis in the emergency rooms at Community Memorial Hospital, St. John’s Regional Medical Center and Simi Valley Adventist Hospital simultaneously. It is not uncommon for nurses to work temporarily in several community settings to “get the lay of the land” for medical services when moving to a new area.

The three hospitals I have referred to provided a good quality of care, in my opinion as a nurse. But Community Memorial Hospital consistently discouraged indigent, uninsured and Medi-Cal patients from registering in its emergency room. Those patients were referred down the street to Ventura County Medical Center or charged a co-pay if they declined.

In later years when Medi-Cal reimbursement rates increased for obstetrical patients and HMO contracts were in force with lower reimbursements, Community Memorial actively solicited those patients away from St. John’s and VCMC, the two hospitals that historically cared for most of the uninsured and Medi-Cal patients.

As a taxpayer and a medical professional I strongly object to the $260-million tobacco settlement being allocated to an institution with such a poor record of supporting and providing services to the low-income and indigent population. Los Angeles County received many of Ventura County’s seriously ill and injured patients because of Community Memorial’s refusal to accept its fair share.

I can see no reason to reward this hospital for its lack of service to the entire Ventura County Community, including those without insurance.

CHARLENE SODERGREN

Simi Valley