Hospital Bailout Unfair, Critics Contend

Warning of an impending health crisis in their fast-growing region, Antelope Valley leaders on Wednesday condemned Los Angeles County’s decision not to use part of a $150-million federal bailout to save the publicly operated High Desert Hospital.

Palmdale Mayor James Ledford said the decision ignores the remote area and favors Los Angeles County’s urban core even though Antelope Valley hospitals are overcrowded.

“Why are we the crisis part of the county?” Ledford asked. “We’re 50% of the territory and we have a population that needs service just like the more urban parts of L.A.”

The county’s financially strapped Department of Health Services will use the two-year federal aid package for two larger facilities that are threatened with closure, Olive View-UCLA Medical Center in Sylmar and Harbor-UCLA Medical Center in Torrance.

County officials said High Desert in Lancaster, which treats the poor and uninsured, is not a priority because it does not have an emergency room and, with only 75 beds, is too small to operate efficiently.

In May, the county plans to convert High Desert into an ambulatory care clinic for medical problems that do not require a hospital stay.

Antelope Valley officials say that they cannot afford to lose any of High Desert’s current services. The area’s population grew by about 27%, to 318,000, in the last decade, while two of its five hospitals closed in an area where an estimated 25% of residents lack health insurance.

In August, a concerned county Board of Supervisors instructed health officials to pursue a bailout scheme that would preserve High Desert’s ability to treat seriously ill patients. Under the plan, the hospital would have until Feb. 28 to secure $9.6 million in annual revenue by renting beds to local hospitals, the private sector and the state Department of Corrections.

To date, county officials have about $1.3 million in contracts. The slow pace worries the city councils in Lancaster and Palmdale, which recently passed a joint resolution imploring the county to try harder. Ledford said he hoped to discuss the matter today with Supervisor Mike Antonovich, whose 5th District includes the Antelope Valley.

Norm Hickling, a field representative for Antonovich, held out hope that the plan could succeed. “It’s kind of like we’re in the fourth quarter. And yeah, we’re down a couple of touchdowns, but we can still pull this out,” he said.

The idea, while novel, is proving troublesome. Corrections officials were expected to sign a $5.6-million contract allowing for the treatment of sick inmates from Lancaster state prison next door, but thus far they have balked, citing security concerns.

Meanwhile, the two other area hospitals have been sending mostly indigent patients to High Desert, according to Fred Leaf, chief operating officer in the Department of Health Services. Other possible deals with private medical groups have not materialized, he said.

Leaf argues that the region will probably be better off if High Desert is transformed into an ambulatory care clinic. Offering treatment for problems that are not life-threatening could free beds and ease crowding at the emergency rooms at Lancaster Community Hospital and Antelope Valley Hospital, he said.

Lancaster Vice Mayor Henry Hearns disagreed, arguing that the poor patients that High Desert now serves will flood the area’s other two hospitals. “That’s not only going to hurt the poor people, it’s going hurt everybody,” said Hearns.