Community Hospital Seismic Problems Well Documented Before Now

It was the physicians and business community of Long Beach that wanted a “community hospital.” They wanted a hospital that would be subsidized by city funds to provide hospitalization at rates lower than the two other private facilities in existence in the 1920s. So with the help of Councilman Filmore Condit, an entrepreneur with ties to the exploding oil industry, the city pledged a portion of its new oil revenues and persuaded taxpayers to obligate the city with bonds. Private funds were also raised and contributions came from many sources, including the local, active chapter of the Ku Klux Klan.

When the city chose eight acres in the “Reservoir field” that was adjacent to Signal Hill, it was very aware that the property was “oil bearing.” In fact, the city canceled the drilling lease held by William Ramsey on the same property and urged the State Legislature to rush through legislation that prohibited oil drilling within 500 feet of hospitals.

A non-profit organization was formed, with Condit as president and Community Hospital of Long Beach was born. The city owned the hospital and leased it to the Long Beach Community Healthcare.

Community survived the 1933 earthquake and added “wings” over the years. In 1983, the legislature passed “Alfred E. Alquist Hospital Facilities Seismic Safety Act of 1983” requiring that hospital buildings that “ house patients who have less than the capacity of normally healthy persons to protect themselves, and that must be reasonably capable of providing services to the public after a disaster, shall be designed and constructed to resist, insofar as practical, the forces generated by earthquakes, gravity and winds.”

California hospital buildings were rated and assessed on their probability of collapse. Under state law, they were to be retrofitted by 2008 or remove their acute care services (i.e. Emergency rooms, operating rooms, intensive care units, etc.) The law was subsequently amended to provide an extension until Jan. 1, 2020, and then again to 2030.

Each of the operators of Community Hospital have known since 1983, that several of buildings needed to be seriously retrofitted, removed or replaced. In 2011, MemorialCare, which operates Community Hospital for the city, informed the State of California that it was not retrofitting but instead would remove those buildings by 2013. A subsequent filing in 2013 indicated Memorial Healthcare would “retrofit” by 2015.

On July 2, 2013, a “severity notice” was placed by the state on the records for Community Hospital noting that “An earthquake fault runs under buildings at facility.” Because of this, retrofitting would not be allowed. Since then, Memorial has filed its state reports indicating that it would “remove” the buildings to be in compliance.

For five years, Memorial Healthcare has known about the severity of the problem at Community and has not engaged the owner of the property, the City of Long Beach, nor its taxpayers, in resolving the problems of not being able to provide acute care services. Instead, Memorial just gave the city a “120 day notice of termination” of its lease which will close the hospital.

Even if new legislation were enacted to extend the dates for compliance with hospital seismic building codes, it does not address the facts that Community Hospital is located on a fault and without an entire rebuild, it or any other hospital operator will not be allowed to provide acute care services.

So what services should be provided on this property? It is time for an honest discussion with the taxpayers about what options are actually viable.

gerrie@beachcomber.news