Hospital Expansion in Limbo

The Los Alamitos Medical Center will have to wait at least a couple more weeks before it can begin its 25-year expansion project.

After listening to residents and business and nonprofit leaders speak for hours in favor of the largest project to ever come before the city, the council shocked the packed chamber by delaying a vote and expressing displeasure with some of the development’s key features.

Namely, city leaders balked at the project’s 25-year construction phase.

“This whole thing is just way too long,” said Councilwoman Marilyn Poe. Like most of the council members, she questioned why the hospital would put forward a 25-year expansion, starting with the development of a medical office building, when it’s the patient rooms and hospital facilities that haven’t kept up with the demand.

“One of the biggest things we’ve heard about is the need for patient care, so why are we doing an office building first and not a building for patient care,” asked Poe. “I have real concerns, that if we give the latitude of 25 years, that this would ever be created.”

Divided into three phases of construction over 25 years, the proposal calls for the demolition of two existing buildings at the medical center and the construction of two hospital towers, a medical office building and a parking structure for paid parking. The 18.3-acre project would eventually add 164 more hospital beds and 849 parking spaces, while creating an estimated 1,665 jobs and generating as many as 3,900 daily car trips down Katella Avenue.

The initial phase of the project calls for a four-story medical office building and a parking structure. The second phase would include the construction of a hospital building for patient care, and the third phase would include a second hospital tower and parking structure.

Mayor Pro Tem Troy Edgar also questioned the timing, noting that he wanted to see the entire medical campus built in less than 10 years, along with a firm commitment from Tenet Healthcare, the hospital’s parent company, to fund the entire project and not just the office building.

He and Councilman Warren Kusumoto suggested that the council make the project approval dependent on a series of milestones. If one phase of the project isn’t built according to schedule, approval for the remaining phases would be nullified. Edgar also said that the city should consider the impact of the ongoing bid by Community Health Systems to take over Tenet.

However, Edgar stressed the city and community’s support for the hospital and expressed worry that the council’s hesitation could discourage hospital officials.

“We have been handed a tremendous opportunity, and we have a significant responsibility that we not send the wrong message back to Tenet,” he said.

Michele Finney, the hospital’s president and chief executive officer, declined to comment on the council’s decision. However, she left the council chambers visibly upset.

According to Finney, the hospital served more than 6,600 Los Alamitos residents alone last year. The expansion would allow for private patient rooms and an emergency room with a larger capacity.

Many came out in favor of the project, along with hospital employees and associated doctors. Paramedics also spoke in favor of the expansion, noting that they have to take emergency patients to other hospitals several times a week because the Los Alamitos emergency room is too full.

“We’re basically at our capacity,” said Dr. Lawrence Feiwell. “We need to move into the 21st century.”

Los Alamitos resident and emergency room clerk Candie Toth said that she loves working at the hospital and urged the council to approve the project for the sake of the residents. She described the day that her autistic son came home from school to find his father writhing in agony after falling and tearing part of his spinal column. When the paramedics reached the hospital, they were told that the emergency room was full.

“That shouldn’t happen, but it does,” Toth said.

Toth said that she routinely has to explain to people from Leisure World that their loved one was rushed elsewhere because the emergency room was already full.

“I have to explain to them what happened, why we don’t have their family member ... and where we took them,” she said.

However, not everyone who works at the hospital spoke in its favor. Several of the hospital’s contracted cleaning staff aired their contract dispute before the council. They described having to work without enough staff, cleaning supplies or water. They decried their $8.40 an hour wages and lack of insurance. One worker said that she has cancer but can’t afford medical care, and another said that she struggles to pay a $5,145 bill from spending three hours in the hospital’s emergency room.

The unexpected testimony caught the attention of residents, including Councilwoman Gerri Graham-Mejia, who suggested that increased wages for the workers would be better for the hospital and the community.

The City Council and city staffers will continue to review the project at a February council meeting.