Hospital Shuts Its Emergency Room Doors

In the latest sign that Parkview Community Hospital in Riverside is struggling for survival, hospital officials announced this week that they can no longer handle emergency room patients.

The hospital shut its emergency room doors indefinitely early in the week, sending patients scrambling to find alternative care facilities.

“This will mean a struggle for everyone,” said Dolores Green, executive director of the Riverside County Medical Assn. “Emergency room doctors are already stretched very thin, and now I’m hearing stories about wait times way over four hours. That’s unacceptable, but what can you do?”

Local hospitals, however, have been acutely aware of the foundering medical center’s problems and began beefing up their own staffing levels, even hiring nurses from Parkview, just in case.

“We had heard some of the rumors,” said Ann Matich, spokeswoman for neighboring Riverside Community Hospital. “I don’t think this came as a surprise.”

Still, emergency room wait times at Riverside Community are stretching up to eight hours some nights, she said. Financial problems had forced Parkview to stop accepting ambulance traffic two months ago.

Normally a hospital must post a 90-day notice before closing its emergency room doors, but the California Department of Health Services granted the facility a financial hardship exemption. Parkview officials are hoping the closure will last no more than nine months.

It’s the latest blow to the hospital, which has been mired in financial problems and filed for bankruptcy protection in March.

Norm Martin, executive director for Parkview, did not return phone calls.

In February, Parkview was barred from participating in the Medicare and Medi-Cal programs after state inspectors ruled that the hospital posed an “immediate jeopardy” to the health and safety of patients. It was a devastating loss, because nearly 70% of the hospital’s funding comes from Medicare and Medi-Cal patients.

At the time, the hospital was already battling overwhelming debt, having recorded more than $30 million in losses since 1995. Although the hospital’s right to participate in the government insurance programs was reinstated after a second inspection in March, the interim financial loss was more than the facility could bear.

After the bankruptcy filing, hospital officials said they hoped to reorganize without shutting down service to Riverside’s poor and uninsured. Parkview became the main health care provider for Riverside’s low-income residents after the county’s hospital moved to neighboring Moreno Valley in 1996.

Among plans being considered by Parkview administrators are taking on a financial partner or allowing another entity to operate the emergency room, which costs nearly $3 million a year. Riverside County has voiced an interest in the emergency room, possibly running it as a satellite facility to the Moreno Valley hospital.

But Riverside County officials want to complete an audit and cost analysis of the emergency room before making a decision, said Ray Smith, a county spokesman.

Either way, Matich said, Riverside Community Hospital is already gearing up for more business. Plans have been in the works for months to add 7,200 square feet to the emergency room. The addition won’t be complete, however, for three years.

“I think everybody here is just keeping their fingers crossed that Parkview will be able to pull out of this one,” Green said. “But it will be a long haul.”