New Hospital Proposed for Conejo Valley

Four years after a powerful hospital chain expanded its presence in the Conejo Valley and triggered the closure of Westlake Medical Center, efforts are underway to create a new hospital in Thousand Oaks.

City Councilwoman Linda Parks will ask her colleagues Tuesday to form a subcommittee to explore creation of a second hospital--possibly at the old Westlake site seven miles away.

She said the Healthcare Co.’s Los Robles Regional Medical Center, now the only hospital in Thousand Oaks, is not big enough to meet the area’s demands.

Although that hospital is planning a 10-year expansion to alleviate overcrowding and is likely to oppose the creation of a competing hospital, Parks said that an alternative “is something that’s needed and very desired by the community.”

At the same time, she acknowledged the idea could quickly become expensive and contentious.

Building a new full-service hospital, even a small one, would cost at least $30 million, according to the Healthcare Assn. of Southern California, an advocacy group for private hospitals. Parks said she would look to state tobacco settlement funds and private donations.

The plan also would require a level of political cohesiveness often lacking on the city’s five-member council.

Already, Mayor Dan Del Campo is saying that establishing a second hospital in town was really his idea, one he has been exploring for more than a month in discussions with doctors, state Assemblyman Tony Strickland (R-Moorpark) and county Supervisor Frank Schillo.

“It eludes me as to how, but often when I’m working on something, all of a sudden it pops up as her idea on the agenda,” Del Campo said of Parks.

Del Campo, considered a swing vote on the council, said he probably will vote against creating a subcommittee because he thinks it’s too soon in the process.

For a new private hospital to open, the city would need to find a corporation or consortium willing to compete against the Healthcare Co. (HCA). At this point, the city has no takers.

In 1995, then-Columbia-HCA acquired the Westlake hospital from Universal Health Services as part of a swap ordered by the Federal Trade Commission to keep the chain from becoming a monopoly in another state.

The hospital company already owned Los Robles Regional Medical Center at the time.

Against the protests of many residents in eastern Thousand Oaks, Westlake Village and Agoura Hills, the Healthcare Co. began eliminating services. It sold the facility a year later to a cancer treatment provider, leasing space there with the option to buy.

That left Los Robles as the only full-service hospital in town. And the sale agreement prevented the cancer specialist from trying to expand into a full-service hospital.

The cancer specialist sued Columbia-HCA, alleging it was trying to stifle competition, but dropped the suit when the chain agreed to buy back the building.

Given its recent history, Del Campo said he believes the Healthcare Co. is unlikely to welcome competition now.

Los Robles spokeswoman Kris Carraway-Bowman, who holds a seat on the neighboring Westlake Village City Council, noted that her council colleagues tried unsuccessfully early on to draw another hospital company into the area. “It was always a money loser,” she said.

Carraway-Bowman said hospital officials had not yet been contacted by Parks or other council members about efforts to establish a second hospital.

“I don’t think it’s needed,” she said. “I strongly believe if you have one hospital that is a full-service, state-of-the-art medical center, that is what best benefits the area.”

The Healthcare Co. still owns the former Westlake hospital’s facility and runs a business office, outpatient therapy and urgent care program there. Short of another lawsuit, the corporation has no motivation to hand the site over to a potential competitor.

“It’s not for sale,” Carraway-Bowman said.

Alan Greenbaum, a Thousand Oaks rabbi, has long supported opening another hospital somewhere in the city. He said his father, a former patient at the Westlake hospital, has dealt with long waits trying to be seen at Los Robles.

“I could not be more pleased,” about plans for a second hospital, Greenbaum said.

Jim Lott, executive vice president for the Healthcare Assn. of Southern California, said the bid to reestablish a Westlake hospital is risky.

While Los Robles is profitable, he said, several of the county’s hospitals are struggling and might be hurt if another hospital came on line.

Also, it would take several years to build a new hospital, and by then the expansion at Los Robles could ease the demand, he said.

“There isn’t any real evidence that another full-service hospital is needed for that community,” Lott said.

“It’s a pride and ego thing,” he continued. “It’s an upper-class community and it’s sort of like, ‘Why shouldn’t we have our own hospital?’ Unfortunately it’s so doggone costly that it’s often inefficient and ineffective.”