Antelope Valley Hospital Fires Chief Executive

In a sign of the turmoil engulfing the overburdened health-care system in northern Los Angeles County, the board of the Antelope Valley’s largest hospital fired its chief executive this week amid concerns about crowding and his alleged opposition to union organizing.

Antelope Valley Hospital Chief Executive Mathew Abraham was ousted Thursday in a 4-1 closed-session vote by the Antelope Valley Health Care District’s board of directors.

Board Chairman Abdullah Farrukh said lawyers advised him not to discuss the reasons for Abraham’s dismissal. But Farrukh said that he had serious concerns about the burdens the nonprofit community hospital is facing and added that there was “a confidence issue between the majority of the board and [Abraham].”

With 387 beds, the Lancaster hospital is the region’s only full-service health-care facility. Besides Lancaster Community Hospital, it will be the only other hospital that will remain to serve the region’s 318,000 residents when the county-run High Desert Hospital discontinues inpatient services next month because of budget cuts.

In the 1990s, two other area hospitals closed while the population surged by 27%. As a result, Farrukh said, Antelope Valley Hospital’s emergency room is now in a crisis, with patients waiting hours -- and sometimes days -- before being admitted. The hospital’s pediatric intensive care unit was closed for budgetary reasons a few years ago, which means very ill children are sent to Childrens Hospital Los Angeles, 65 miles south, Farrukh said.

No other board members returned calls for comment, and Abraham declined to comment.

Lancaster Vice Mayor Henry Hearns and other city officials said Abraham has been a capable manager. The facility is operating with a $17-million surplus, hospital spokesman Ed Callahan said.

But critics contend that the surplus is an indication that Abraham was too fiscally conservative at a time when the hospital needed to spend more on patient care.

“Certainly, we want to stay in the black, but we can’t be experiencing that kind of surplus at the risk of expanding critically needed health care here,” said Robert Davenport, a Palmdale resident and a former Democratic candidate for the Assembly. “It’s very frightening.”

A high-profile attempt to organize registered nurses may also have contributed to the ouster of Abraham, who was chief executive for four years. The effort on the part of the California Nurses Assn. was opposed by previous members of the board, and association officials blamed Abraham for carrying out anti-union policies. Board elections in November resulted in a pro-union majority that ended opposition to the nurses’ organizing efforts.

The results of a nurses’ vote over whether to choose nurses association representation will be tallied in coming weeks. Two other unionization efforts are also underway.

Meanwhile, anxiety over the availability of health care remains high as the plan to scale back High Desert Hospital draws close. The Antelope Valley currently has 1.5 hospital beds per 1,000 people. The national average is three beds per 1,000, and Los Angeles County averages 2.5 beds per 1,000, Callahan said.

Farrukh said a coalition of local officials is considering filing a lawsuit against the county, claiming that the Antelope Valley is not receiving enough services for its tax dollars.

Antelope Valley civic leaders have also been scrambling -- so far, unsuccessfully -- to save High Desert Hospital with a plan to contract its beds out to private companies and the state Corrections Department.

A private 170-bed hospital is scheduled to open in Palmdale at the end of 2005. Antelope Valley Hospital has also considered opening a Palmdale branch, but Callahan said it would be expensive to build, at about $1 million per bed.