2 Hospitals Plan Major Expansions

At a time when many hospitals are struggling to survive, eastern Ventura County’s two medical centers are embarking on major expansions.

Simi Valley Hospital broke ground Thursday on a $35-million renovation project, and planners next week will review a proposed $120-million modernization of Los Robles Regional Medical Center in Thousand Oaks.

Both projects will create private rooms where there are none, expand services and ensure that overnight patient facilities meet state earthquake standards.

Los Robles’ rebuilding effort would add 90 beds in a four-story extension to the existing hospital. Because the new building would be erected in what is now a parking lot, the hospital also wants to build a 520-space parking structure.

The 850-employee Simi Valley Hospital, run by Adventist Health, expects to start construction this month on the project to create a four-story, 170-bed wing, along with new parking.

On Thursday morning, about 300 employees and others gathered in a visitor parking lot at the 37-year-old hospital for two hours of prayers and speeches during a groundbreaking event.

Simi Valley Mayor Bill Davis and other local officials came to congratulate the hospital on its first major expansion since 1985, when it enhanced its emergency and radiology departments and added a new surgery floor. The current modernization will double the intensive care unit from 11 to 24 beds, expand the labor and delivery portion of the hospital and add cardiovascular services and an intensive care unit for newborns.

Hospital President Margaret R. Peterson earlier stressed the importance of demolishing parts of the main building to develop a facility that meets state seismic standards.

“As a hospital, we’re long overdue for an expansion,” she said. “Certainly the state seismic mandate also is driving our plans.”

Industry officials have reported that more than half the state’s hospitals are losing money on their operations, even without costly seismic retrofits required by the state by 2008.

Adventist Health has committed $10 million to the project, an ongoing fund-raising campaign will generate $9 million and $16 million comes from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to compensate for more than $20 million in damage sustained in the Northridge earthquake.

The 1994 quake prompted a toughening of state law to require all California hospitals to reinforce buildings that serve overnight patients to withstand an 8-magnitude earthquake or to build new ones.

Earthquake compliance also is part of the reason for renovation of Los Robles’ main campus on West Janss Road, which will be paid for by its parent company, Hospital Corp. of America.

On Monday, the Thousand Oaks Planning Commission is set to vote on whether an environmental study of the Los Robles proposal is complete. Neighbors of the 34-year-old medical center insist that the study is inadequate and are expected to turn out to criticize the expansion.

“I like having a world-class health facility in my city.... Our concerns are really trying to understand what is the long-term plan for the hospital,” said Sidlee Street resident Paul Aguilar, whose backyard runs parallel to Los Robles, which has 1,450 employees. “If it is going to be this grandiose hospital, is that the right location -- given the infrastructure and all the issues that will pop up, like traffic?”

Mike Marvin, an accountant who lives on nearby Tarkio Street, questions the city’s traffic analysis of the project, which concludes that the expanded hospital won’t significantly increase traffic in the surrounding neighborhood.

Marvin and his neighbors also are concerned about noise and pollution during construction, about not knowing just how large Los Robles eventually hopes to become and about the proposed height of the new building -- in excess of 70 feet, which is more than twice a 35-foot city height limit.

“One of the things to ask is: If you were building a hospital from scratch today, would you want to put it on the corner of Lynn and Janss roads?” he said.

But Los Robles spokeswoman Kris Carraway-Bowman said the hospital will adhere to all environmental requirements to reduce dirt and dust during construction and that the hospital addition would not be built any higher than the existing center.

Regarding traffic, Carraway-Bowman points to an environmental analysis that says potential problems could be handled by installing extra turn lanes at two nearby intersections and devising a parking management plan, including valet and off-site parking.

Despite adding 41% more patient beds, Carraway-Bowman said there will not be a corresponding hike in vehicles.

“We are finding that we are consistently short of beds,” she said. “It’s not so much that we’ll be getting that many more patients in. We just have to accommodate the patients we already have.”