California Hospital News Roundup for the Week of September 5, 2008
On Aug. 22, executives at Century City Doctors Hospital announced that the facility had begun shutting down and given up efforts to sell the hospital, the Los Angeles Times reports.
The hospital emergency department closed on Aug. 23, and remaining patients were being discharged or transferred to other facilities.
Hospital officials said that they had filed for financial liquidation under Chapter 7 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code and had petitioned the court to use emergency funds to pay workers (Costello, Los Angeles Times, 8/23).
Personnel represented by the Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West staged a 24-hour strike last week at five California hospitals owned by the Daughters of Charity Health System, the San Francisco Chronicle reports.
Food service workers, radiology technicians, housekeeping staff and other hospital employees represented by the union have been without a contract since April (Colliver, San Francisco Chronicle, 8/29).
Last week, Glendale Memorial Hospital and Health Center announced that it would eliminate its behavioral health services and close its outpatient women's health clinic, the Los Angeles Daily News reports.
Officials attributed the decision to limited usage and low reimbursements (Los Angeles Daily News, 8/30).
The California Nurses Association has withdrawn a petition to represent nurses at Inland Valley Medical Center, and an election scheduled for late August was canceled, the Riverside Press-Enterprise reports.
CNA will not be able to file another petition to represent nurses at the facility for six months, although other unions can move ahead with organization efforts, according to James Small, director of Region 21 of the National Labor Relations Board (Katzanek, Riverside Press-Enterprise, 8/23).
A measure to help fund renovations at Salinas Valley Memorial Hospital did not win sufficient support for passage among voters in the Salinas Valley Memorial Healthcare District, the Monterey County Herald reports.
The initiative, Measure W, would have provided a $392 million, 40-year bond issue to help fund renovations at the hospital needed to comply with state seismic safety rules. The election was conducted via mail.
Preliminary results show that the measure won support from about 52% of voters, below the two-thirds threshold needed for passage (Parsons, Monterey County Herald, 8/27).
Assembly member Ted Gaines (R-Roseville) is pressuring state officials to delay approval of Sierra Vista Hospital's application to add 48 beds, the Sacramento Bee reports.
Since 2004, the facility has been cited for lapses in care quality more than any other private psychiatric facility in California, and Gaines is calling for the Department of Public Health to investigate the facility.
Hospital officials argue that the additional beds are needed to meet community needs and say that they have hired two administrators to work with a team to improve conditions at the facility (Hubert, Sacramento Bee, 8/28).
Last week, the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee announced that it has reached a contract agreement with Sutter Delta Medical Center, the East Bay Business Times reports.
The proposed contract would increase pay for about 300 registered nurses by 30% over three years, but about half of the proposed pay increase took effect in July.
The proposed contract would run through Aug. 30, 2011 (Hogarth, East Bay Business Times, 8/28).
On Wednesday, Sutter Roseville Medical Center opened an $11.9 million neonatal intensive care unit, the Sacramento Bee reports.
The unit has 16 beds and features four private rooms to allow mothers to stay overnight with infants, bassinet stations in semi-private rooms and a sleep room set up like a motel room to help families transition from a hospital setting to home (Campos, Sacramento Bee, 9/3).
About 62% of voters in the Tri-City Healthcare District voted in support of a bond measure to fund renovations at Tri-City Medical Center, less than the two-thirds support required for passage, the San Diego Union-Tribune reports.
The renovations are needed for the hospital to comply with state seismic safety rules.
It is the third time in two years that such a measure has fallen short of passage (Sherman, San Diego Union-Tribune, 8/27).