Posted on 08/24/2008 4:14:21 AM PDT by kellynla
Financially troubled Century City Doctors Hospital gave up hope of finding a buyer and began shutting down Friday, according to hospital executives. Officially, the facility said it would cease operations late next week.
The hospital's emergency room -- a key element of the county's increasingly fragile emergency safety net -- will be closed today, and about 30 remaining patients will be discharged or transferred to nearby facilities beginning this weekend.
Regionally, 14 emergency rooms have been closed in the last five years, including 10 in Los Angeles County. After the closure, there will be 74 ERs remaining in the county.
On Friday, the hospital filed for financial liquidation under Chapter 7 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code. Employees said they didn't get paid this week; other employees said payroll checks they received had bounced.
Hospital executives said they were petitioning the federal Bankruptcy Court to use emergency funds to pay employees as early as next week but acknowledged that they might not be able to do so.
"I haven't been paid in two weeks and I'm afraid I'm just not going to get paid," Tamara Tobin, a nursing assistant, said as she arrived at the hospital Friday.
The 176-bed facility, on Century Park East in the Century City Medical Plaza, has tried for months to improve its finances but has struggled to pay its growing debt, which the hospital estimated in a recent interview with The Times at more $60 million.
"It's really unfortunate" the hospital is closing, said Pat Wolfram, its interim chief executive. "Even this morning, we were trying to get a buyer and remain open but it just didn't happen. This is a great hospital and it's very sad."
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
There’s more there than meets the eye. CCDH used to be Century City Hospital, a Tenet Healthcare facility. Tenet lost a bundle there and then played hardball with the building owner and lost. They wound up giving the facility back to the landlord. That’s when CCDH came into the picture, and, IIRC, they assumed a massive amount of debt in the transaction.
I’m not sure their business model was sustainable, either. They aimed, from the beginning, at the high end clients, reducing the beds fro over 220 to about 176, and added luxury accommodations, as well. That put them competing dead smack against Cedars Sinai.
It’s not like they didn’t know, going in, that they would have to treat every illegal that walks in, or is brought in by ambulance, for free.
Well, at least there is still Brotman nearby. :)
What does that mean?
Without such mandatory ER care you're going to see an awful lot of additional (preventably) permanent injuries and deaths.
No, but I sure know that McCain is not either...
Yep. The ACHD (Association of Community Hospital DISTRICTS) is a tax-payer subsidized cash cow to promote more socialism...
I’m aware of that. But, by and large, it’s the illegal population that hurt the most.
With legal free loaders, you can sue and get a judgment, garnish wages, take property, etc. With illegals, you can’t.
That's probably true today...but I wonder about the details. I think poor, rural whites constituted a majority of ER freeloaders for most of the 60 years since the law was passed...and, judging by the size of our bad debt writeoffs, most of them never paid.
It makes good sense to lots of Mexicans too.
A Healthcare District is a community owned and operated district, established by local voters, and run by elected (usually volunteer) directors. If the voters don't like it they can vote the whole thing out of existance. A few years ago, when our hospital neared bankruptcy because of mismanagement and general problems facing ALL hospitals EVERYWHERE, the voters chose to tax themselves - by a more than 2/3rds margin - rather than allow it to close.
ACHD represents all such districts in Sacramento. It is a lobbying group. I have attended its meetings. I have lobbied. It is funded in part at least by its members. Many who serve do so voluntarily.
It is democracy at its best. I don't know who you think you are to slander it so freely. An ignoramous certainly...and I'm being very, very generous.
It’s not just illegal aliens. How many inner-city gunshot victims are in the ER in California and don’t have insurance? Hopefully, by them closing, people will realize that healthcare isn’t free. All healthcare services should be prepaid, IMO.
Perhaps you didn’t spend the first 45 years of your life in Southern California, as I did?
Yes they should be. But the reality of income distribution makes that impossible.
As you know the top 5 deciles pay 96% of the income taxes, and the bottom 2 deciles pay no income taxes and no FICA taxes. And then there's the whole huge cash economy which exists almost entirely outside the tax system.
Now there is the Draconian solution. Repeal the law making ER treatment mandatory. Let those without funds die on the streets. If that's what you want, then say so.
Most of those last 40 years were great. I was very lucky. But that life is gone now, overwhelmed by overpopulation, gross and horrible development, filthy, tasteless rich pigs, and poor Mexicans. I won't go back.
I understand very well what you're talking about...but now that I've lived in rural California full time for more than a decade I see that it, too, has problems. Problems that I was completely unaware of when I lived down south.
A lot closed in Pa. too. Thank you trial lawyers.
yea, well you might get away with that at the Thanksgiving table ‘round your house BUT we're gonna need something more credible here because we don't know “liberallarry” from Mr. Ed!
either you have documentation or as in this case you apparently don't...
“all hat, no cattle” LOL
Slight correction... the dems support increasing their voting base by importing the turd world, but the GOP wants the invasion because of the cheap labor, and the downward pressure illegals put on the wages of citizens that can't (yet) be replaced by them.
Send your Thank You cards to the Federal Government.
"no hat, no cattle, no brains, no nothin'"
Socialism... a tax-payer subsidized cash cow to promote more socialism...
A few years ago, when our hospital neared bankruptcy because of mismanagement and general problems facing ALL hospitals EVERYWHERE,...
Illegal aliens and other people who refuse to pay their bills, along with embezzling and theft...
...the voters chose to tax themselves - by a more than 2/3rds margin - rather than allow it to close.
Mob robbery... socialism... sticking a gun in the faces of those who don't want to pay someone else's bills...
I know all about the Salinas Valley Hospital District (SVMH) and Natividad Hospital. Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula (CHOMP) is a non-union, private hospital.
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Salinas Valley Memorial hospital is as about as good as they get in terms of patient care.
SVMH has the highest paid nurses in the country, even though the unions are a useless, leeching left wing arm of the local Democrap party.
SVMH is swamped by illegal aliens who work in big agriculture...
I could tell you one hell of a lot about SVMH.) SEIU... wants to give illegal aliens a vote!
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Natividad County Hospital is full of theft, corruption, nepotism and is a haven for illegal aliens.
Also, having a man on the inside at Natividad, I know more about it than you might. SEIU... wants to give illegal aliens a vote!
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Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula is also a great place. It is not yet union as far as I know, but the extreme wealth of nearby residents and quality of medical staff helps a great deal.
They are also innundated with illegal aliens from the low paying tourism industry. SEIU is trying to get in on the deal, they want to give illegal aliens a vote!
THEN IN MONTEREY COUNTY, THERE IS LEON PANETTA, CLINTON'S BOY, DOING ALL HE CAN TO STEAL FROM EVERYBODY USING GOVERNMENT WITH A $900.00 PER DAY SALARY (HIS WIFE GETS ANOTHER $500.00 PER DAY) FROM CSUMB (california university monterey bay) ADVOCATING EVER HIGHER TAXES AND LEFT WING NONSENSE ALL ON THE GOVERNMENT DIME...
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