California Healthline Highlights Recent Hospital News
Hanford Community Medical Center and Selma Community Hospital have begun operating under a consolidated license as part of a consolidation by Adventist Health, the Fresno Bee reports.
In addition, 13 health clinics also will operate under the license and authority of Central Valley General Hospital in Hanford (Fresno Bee, 11/3).
Antelope Valley Hospital officials presented first phase plans of a three-phase hospital expansion plan to the board of directors last week, the Los Angeles Daily News reports.
Phase one, which is estimated to cost about $53 million, would increase the size of the emergency department by almost 9,000 square feet and add 12 to 14 beds to the 20-bed intensive care unit. The ICU would move into space currently occupied by women's services. That department will move to the hospital's skilled nursing facility, which is being converted into a Women and Infants Center scheduled to open in March.
The plan also would add a second cardiac catheterization laboratory with a recovery area and patient holding room. MRI and CAT scan equipment would be moved from a satellite building to the hospital.
The plan was not up for a vote and no action was taken by the board (Maeshiro, Los Angeles Daily News, 10/31).
Golden Valley Health Centers plans to open a new, 4,500-square-foot health clinic in Newman, an agricultural area with few doctors and a large number of uninsured residents, the Modesto Bee reports.
The clinic will provide primary care services, as well as dental care services and mental health counseling.
GVHC has raised about $1 million for the clinic and hopes to raise the remaining $600,000 before the end of the year so it can begin construction in early 2006. The clinic could open in the summer (Carlson, Modesto Bee, 10/30).
Blythe residents on Tuesday will vote on whether to approve Measure I, a ballot measure that would levy a $32-per-parcel annual property tax to fund operations at Palo Verde Hospital, the Los Angeles Times reports. The 51-bed hospital is the only emergency department for about a 100-mile radius of the city.
Blythe City Manager Les Nelson said the measure is "not very popular," but if it fails, the Palo Verde Hospital Board might be forced into bankruptcy because of a lack of funding.
The Los Angeles Times reports that city residents are "divided over just why and how" the hospital became so financially unstable and whether public funding is the best solution for maintaining solvency. The measure needs a two-thirds vote to pass (Rosenblatt, Los Angeles Times, 11/3).
About 500 union workers at St. Luke's Hospital will join a seven-week strike at California Pacific Medical Center on Nov. 14 unless a contract dispute is settled, labor leaders said Tuesday, the San Francisco Chronicle reports. Both hospitals are affiliates of Sutter Health.
The SEIU-United Healthcare Workers-West at St. Luke's would join about 800 union workers at CPMC in the strike. Union officials on Oct. 28 rejected a contract offer by Sutter management, saying the proposal did not meet SEIU's demands in three areas, according to union President Sal Rosselli.
The union's demands include allowing third-party arbitration to resolve staffing disputes, setting rules for union organizing, and establishing terms of a training and education fund, the Chronicle reports.
The union wants Sutter to accept a settlement developed by a federal mediator, which was prepared before the strike began (Colliver, San Francisco Chronicle, 11/2).
San Francisco General Hospital officials are soliciting the support of local hospital and health care executives, as well as others, for a November 2006 ballot measure for an $800 million bond issue to rebuild the hospital, the San Francisco Business Times reports.
Sandra Hernandez -- CEO of the San Francisco Foundation, co-chair of a task force that recommended the hospital stay at its current site and former San Francisco director of public health -- said city officials "have a responsibility and an important one" to communicate to voters the need to replace SFGH in time to meet state seismic safety standards by the January 2013 deadline.
Sources familiar with plans for the hospital said city officials have set December 2006 as an internal deadline for deciding how to proceed with the project and are taking steps to enlist the help of city agencies and other parties interested in the rebuilding (Rauber, San Francisco Business Times, 10/31).