Tenet Healthcare Agrees Not To Close Fitness Center at Inglewood Hospital

Santa Barbara-based Tenet Healthcare officials on Friday agreed to keep open a fitness center used by patients at the Daniel Freeman Memorial Hospital in Inglewood but said that they would close the hospital's cardiac rehabilitation service and enroll a dozen patients who currently use the service at a similar center at Tenet's nearby Centinela Hospital, the Los Angeles Times reports (Vrana, Los Angeles Times, 12/6). A Tenet memo issued last month announced that it would close Daniel Freeman's heart center, which is currently being investigated by the U.S. attorney's office for performing unnecessary heart surgeries, effective Dec. 5. Tenet officials said that they were closing the heart center at the hospital to consolidate the services at Centinela and that the closure is unrelated to the investigation (California Healthline, 11/11).