Community Hospital Plans Discussed on Straight Talk Show with Art Levine

[Editor’s Note: The following is an edited transcript of a Straight Talk Show that aired last month with Host Art Levine interviewing 4th District Councilman Daryl Supernaw, Mario Molina and John Molina.]

Art: We are going to be focused tonight on saving Community Hospital. We’re very pleased to have as our first guest, Long Beach City Councilman from the 4th District Daryl Supernaw. Tell us why, in your view and in the city’s view, saving Community Hospital is such a priority?

Daryl: Community Hospital is a critical asset to the city of Long Beach in general, and especially to the east side of the city. It’s the only acute care hospital with an emergency room, and it serves even a greater regional area if other hospitals go on what they call “divert,” if their emergency rooms are filled, then it’s the only game in town for the southeast corner of the city.

Art: And in these emergency situations, time is critical. Minutes can make the difference between life and death.

Daryl: That’s a huge part of this scenario. When we get into paramedics their wait times in the emergency room to drop off patients – All that is affected.

Art: Who owns Community Hospital?

Daryl: The property and the facility is all owned by the City of Long Beach. It was deeded to the city, I believe in 1911 by the water department. And Community Hospital was built in 1924, so it’s been there serving the citizens of Long Beach for 94 years.

Art: Why did Memorial Care choose to close the hospital?

Daryl: They felt that the buildings were untenable, that they couldn’t make it work.

Art: Earthquake wise?

Daryl: Yes. And so, they notified us on October 30, 2017 that they would be leaving the facility. There was a deadline, a state deadline of July 2019, but they left it open-ended. And then in March of 2018, they informed us that we’re going to be out by July 2018.

Art: Memorial agreed recently to withdraw its request to close the hospital and rather put [the license] in suspense.

Daryl: They could’ve surrendered the hospital license that was renewed on April 28th or place it in suspension. And that would allow someone else to take over a hospital that is licensed. To say it’s just the difference in night and day is an understatement. This makes it very doable where it would’ve been next to impossible otherwise.

Art: So, what do you see happening in the future?

Daryl: We’re working on multiple areas and there’s just an alphabet soup of acronyms for state agencies, county agencies and departments to deal with, so right now we’re working on a piece with a state agency, the acronym is OSHPD, and that is the seismic piece. And most folks know that our office put up the money to hire an architectural firm, Perkins and Will, to get that process started. So, that works concurrently or parallel to another process that is starting up with the California Department of Public Health, and the new operators will work with them on establishing the parameters to work on getting that license. Now, that’s a process between the Molina Wu Group [which will work] with the State of California. The city will do everything in it’s power to help that process.

Art: And the Molina Wu Group is the group that the city chose of the half a dozen or so applicants to run with this project?

Daryl: Absolutely, they came out on top. I personally as a born and raised Long Beach guy, really happy to see that the Molina’s involved.

Art: Continuing our discussion about saving Community Hospital we are joined now by Doctor Mario Molina. Tell us about MWN, who are they?

Mario: The M is for Molina, my brother John and I. W is for Wu, Doctor Wu, who runs AHMC Hospitals and N is for Network Medical Management, which is run by Doctor Sim, which manages doctor practices. Doctor Wu’s organization runs seven hospitals including one that they bought in Orange County from Memorial Care.

Art: Why did you and your brother John decide to get involved in this effort to save Community Hospital?

Mario: I got a call one morning from John and he said, “They’re closing Community Hospital, is there anything we can do?”. And so, I called Doctor Wu and I called Doctor Sim and I said, “Would you guys be willing to help us try to keep the hospital open?” Without knowing anything about it, Doctor Wu stepped up immediately.

We wanted to do it because Community Hospital has been such an important part of the community for so long, Memorial didn’t want to do this anymore. And so, we wanted to bring in a really qualified hospital operator to keep the hospital open and make sure that the emergency room stayed open.

Art: I’m sure almost all of our viewers know, Doctor Mario Molina and John Molina were principal officers of Molina Healthcare and New York Stock Exchange listed public company. Daryl, that must have made a big difference in your life and the feeling about the city of getting a group of this quality to be interested in participating in your program?

Daryl: Absolutely, they had the best of the best. All the elements covered. It was great to have Long Beach people involved. I knew that we didn’t have to explain the history of the facility to them, and I didn’t think I had to explain how important that is to the city of Long Beach, as you just heard, they felt that right off the bat.

Art: What are other obstacles that you see, Doctor Mario, in between now and the finish line?

Mario: There are a number of things that we have to do. The license is going to go into suspense, which is really important because it means they’re not surrendering it, so we can come back later on and pick that up. We’re going to have to work with the city and their architects to come up with a plan. And it’s a little bit like a Rubik’s Cube, we’re going to have to move things around to fit everything we need into the footprint of the historic building.

Art: Just for the record, the historic building, the Legacy Building that most people think of when you think of Community, is not where there’s an earthquake problem, the earthquake problem is in the surrounding areas, other parts of the hospital.

Mario: That’s correct. So, the Legacy Building is probably the safest building, which is ironic because it is the oldest. So, once we get the configuration we’re going to have to then reactivate the license, hire the staff back, and then the third part is to figure out what to do with the rest of the property, because there are a lot of facilities there that can be used, they just can’t be used for an acute care hospital. That’s where John comes in. His job is to figure out what to do with the rest of the property.

Art: It’s exciting to be working with partners of this quality.

Daryl: Just to clarify, there’s an earthquake fault that runs diagonally across the property and so, it has two factors that is, the proximity to that fault line is key. The Legacy Building is the furthest distance away from that fault line.

Art: There’s another component I know in the solution, and that is changing by legislation the time lines that certain things have to happen. Who’s going to help with all this?

Daryl: Patrick O’Donnell brought forth an assembly bill and that went to committee, and they said, “Well if you come up with a plan, show us your plan you have in place, we’ll consider this [for an extension.” We were hoping for possibly five years from that July 2019 date.

Mario: I think it’s important to note too, that Community Hospital is not the only facility that has this problem. There are many other facilities in the state that have this. And so, the legislation to give us a little bit more time is not unusual. In fact, I think there was a bill passed earlier this year for something like 25 facilities.

Art: What is your vision of the future, if things work out the way you had hoped?

Mario: Well, you know, I think medicine has changed a lot and hospitals need to keep up with the times. So, for us I think the next step is to build a hospital that will serve East Long Beach for the 21st Century, and as more things shift from inpatient hospital to outpatient services, figure out how we repurpose the buildings that are there to continue to serve the community and provide healthcare to East Long Beach.

Art: We’re joined now by John Molina. Your kind of in charge of everything else that’s going to go on these 10 acres, what are some of your thoughts?

John: As Mario said, we want to make the hospital a 21st Century hospital, which means less things occur in the hospital and more outpatients. So, we are looking at adding behavioral health services, both outpatient and inpatient, maybe some programs for the elderly, maybe assisted living, and we’re working with both Long Beach City College and Cal State Long Beach to provide some training ground, some experience for their students in nursing, speech pathology, physical therapy, etc.

Art: What about non-medical uses of the property? Is there a possibility of just putting commercial enterprises on those 10 acres?

John: I wouldn’t rule anything out right now. I think what we want to do is have it to be a health and well-being campus as opposed to a commercial enterprise.

Mario: Things are changing and medicine is changing so fast it’s hard to predict what the future’s going to hold. I think the main thing we need to do is try to be flexible and adaptable. About 20% of all the paramedic runs in Long Beach, go to Community Hospital. So, it’s an important place to keep open. Especially if you live on the east side

Art: Well, the polls of the community strongly indicate the desire to keep that hospital open and anything the community can do to help you guys complete this project, I think you just ask and you get that cooperation.

John: That’s a great point Art. But really for this new iteration of a community asset to be successful, we have to listen to what the community wants, so we will be going out and having listening sessions, and talking to people in East Long Beach, talking to the paramedics, talking to the physicians. What is it that we can do there to make it better for everybody?

Mario: And then we’re going to have to go back to the state with our plan, we’re going to have to go to the legislature and ask them for an extension on the seismic standards. There’s a lot of work to be done.

Our chances for success are good. But there are no guarantees, I’ve been really pleased by the support we’ve gotten from the community, it’s been really impressive to see how everyone has been supportive and offered to help.

John: I think Mario said it at the city council meeting, a tremendous amount of work went to get us to this point, city staff, John Keisler and his group, City Council, Suzie Price, and of course Councilman Supernaw, and the community itself. But, the hard work doesn’t end now, the hard work begins phase two, where we really want to put something in that’s special and that’s financially sustainable.

Mario: I want to thank the city and the City Council for their faith in us, for the staff who have done such a good job pulling all of this together so quickly and negotiating with Memorial to put the license in suspense.

Last but not least I want to thank John, because John was the architect of this whole thing and it’s been his plan that we’re going to implement.

Art: Thank you.

The Straight Talk show airs in Long Beach/Signal Hill on Saturday and Sunday at 9 a.m. and 7 p.m. on LBTV Channel 3 and Frontier FiOS 21. It also airs Saturday and Sunday in Long Beach and 70 surrounding cities at 10 a.m. and 8 p.m. on Charter Channel 188. Straight Talk is viewable on demand at www.StraightTalkTV.com.