EDGEMOOR HOSPITAL: County To Look For Private Partner
San Diego County Supervisors yesterday "voted unanimously ... to ask the private sector to consider teaming up with county government to rebuild" Edgemoor Hospital, the "deteriorated" public facility "slated to close in two years." The San Diego Union-Tribune reports that under the plan approved yesterday, "the county would donate 43 acres surrounding Edgemoor to a private entity, which would agree to rebuild the hospital as part of a senior-care system." However, the county would stay involved in Edgemoor's operations in order to ensure that it continues to receive the higher level of Medi-Cal funding for which it now qualifies. "Most of the 200 patients" who currently reside at Edgemoor -- which serves as a long-term, skilled nursing facility of last-resort for those with chronic conditions like AIDS -- "are on Medi-Cal." A county- appointed patient advocate voiced approval for the new plan, saying that rebuilding the existing facility and retaining the existing staff and patient population is "exactly what the patients have always wanted" (Rother, 10/21).
Like I Said
In an op-ed in yesterday's San Diego Union-Tribune, County Supervisor Dianne Jacob, who proposed the Edgemoor plan approved by the supervisors yesterday, says, "The time is right for such an approach!" She notes that by including Edgemoor "as part of a continuum of care for the county's aging population," the county will be not only planning for the needs of the area's indigent, chronically ill patients, but also "for the future needs of the growing elderly population in San Diego County" (Jacob, 10/20).