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Hospital Closes After Financial Rescue Attempt Fails



Health Care: Medical Equipment Left in Place

For Facility’s Possible Sale

As of midnight June 4, when the doors at Scripps Memorial Hospital East County officially closed, the three-month battle to save the financially plagued facility ended.

For now, the majority of the displaced East County residents with emergencies are expected to be diverted to Grossmont Hospital in La Mesa.

Three East County community clinics , East County Community Health Services in El Cajon, El Capitan Family Health Center in Lakeside, and La Mesa Community Health Services in La Mesa , plus Alvarado Hospital Medical Center in San Diego and Kaiser Permanente are expected to also pick up the slack.

County Supervisor Dianne Jacob, who had pleaded with Scripps officials to postpone the closure, described it as a “crisis.”

“I am extremely disappointed that Scripps gave us such short notice,” Jacob said, referring to Scripps’ 90-day notice of the closure. “That’s not enough time to put a mitigation plan in place or transfer the ownership to another buyer.”

Jacob said for many emergency patients the estimated extra 10- to 12-minute drive to Grossmont, Alvarado or Kaiser could mean the difference between life and death.

At this point, Jacob can merely find solace in that Scripps complied with her request to suspend the license and leave the hospital equipment intact to facilitate its transfer to another potential buyer.

Talks Continue

Jacob, who represents the 2nd District which encompasses most of East County, said talks are continuing with the Dallas-based Leland Medical Center, which previously expressed interest in buying the East County hospital.

“I just hope Scripps doesn’t ask for a ridiculous price and kill the deal,” she said.

A Scripps spokeswoman said the health system has not heard back from Texas-based Paragon Health Resources, the health care-management services group that specializes in salvaging hospitals and is behind the deal, after Scripps furnished the requested information.

A Paragon official could not be reached for comment.

Jacob said she will continue to mediate between Paragon and Scripps to help facilitate discussions, adding the closure of the hospital complicated the deal tremendously.

To ease the burden on other hospitals, Jacob has embarked on a major public education campaign to get East County residents to only use emergency rooms for true emergencies.

The initiative will not be shouldered by taxpayer money, according to Jacob.

Scripps’ El Cajon facility had some 24,000 emergency rooms visits per year , only 3,000 of which were true emergencies.

Scripps reported the hospital’s net loss of $10 million over the last six years, a declining number of patients, and a decrease in federal reimbursement rates for Medicare patients led to the closure.

Gary Stephany, president and chief executive officer at the Healthcare Association of San Diego and Imperial Counties, said all hospitals are struggling to make ends meet.

Community Support

However, in the case of Scripps East County, he said, a lack of community support and doctors’ referring patients to other hospitals exacerbated Scripps’ troubles.

“If the community wants to support the hospital, they need to show that by coming up with the money to support it and by going in as patients,” Stephany said. “Doctors need to support it by directing their patients to the hospital.”

Stephany didn’t share Jacob’s feelings of a crisis, saying “the extra five- or 10-minute drive won’t make a difference between life and death.”

But he admits, other local hospitals will feel the pain.

“You can’t transfer a money-losing proposition to another entity without them losing too,” he said.

Michele Tarbet, chief executive officer at Grossmont Hospital, a 450-bed hospital that is part of the Sharp HealthCare hospital group, said the Scripps’ closure led Grossmont to pay $2 million in unbudgeted capital improvements.

Grossmont will invest $1.5 million to build a new endoscopy suite and added new monitoring equipment to move patients more rapidly through the emergency room, Tarbet said.

No one will be turned away from the emergency room, she said.

To accommodate the increase of displaced patients, Grossmont added eight beds in the emergency room, hired two new emergency room doctors and is prepared to boost its staff to accommodate patients, Tarbet said.

She said Grossmont has already felt the aftermath of the closure.

“Emergency room visits were up 10 percent in May and June compared to the same time last year,” Tarbet said.

She couldn’t give exact figures, but said during these months admissions typically decline.

Still, Tarbet sympathized with Scripps’ decision.

“I think it’s unfortunate, but they were losing a significant amount of money,” she said.

“We need to go forward to see where the best place is to get medical care.”

For 151 employees out of the 319 total staff members formerly employed at Scripps East County hospital, the future remains within the Scripps system.

The majority of the remaining 168 former employees have moved on, according to a Scripps spokeswoman.

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