Hospital News Feed
| As hospital closes, hundreds of employees clear out |
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THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER, January 12, 2009 - Irvine Regional Hospital will shut its doors Wednesday and reopen one to two years later under the Hoag hospital banner. IRVINE The swan song of Irvine's community hospital ends Wednesday, as the last of more than 700 doctors, nurses and others finish clearing out their workspaces. After months of notice, Irvine Regional Hospital will shut its doors and shed its entire workforce. Up to two years later, the hospital will reopen under a new banner. "It's only beginning to sink in, how big the impact's going to be," said Dr. Felice Gersh, an obstetrician-gynecologist who's been at the hospital since 1991. The 176-bed facility went up in 1990 after Irvine residents launched a grass-roots community effort. Last July, Texas-based Tenet Healthcare Corp., announced it would not renew its lease of the Irvine hospital. Newport Beach-based Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian picked up the lease and publicized extensive renovation plans for the building, including adding operating rooms. The new hospital, an extension of Hoag's Newport Beach campus, will specialize in orthopedics and sports medicine when it reopens in 2010 or 2011. For now, it's emptying its denizens. "It's like a ghost town," said Dr. Marshall Grossman, who served as the hospital's chief of staff during the 1990s. "The nurses are crying. A lot of people are just really sad. A lot of the people have really put their lives into that place." For the past few months, workshops have been held to guide employees through polishing their portfolios, filing for unemployment benefits and finding work. "Some folks have been there for 15 to 18 years, so they haven't put together resumes. They haven't even thought about leaving. It's their home," said Rick Rawson, contracted by Tenet to help with the outplacement of workers. To date, 24 Irvine Regional employees have transferred to other Tenet hospitals across the country, according to company spokesperson David Matthews. Many dismissed employees have also applied for open positions at Hoag, said spokesperson Debra Legan, though Hoag doesn't keep track of where applicants last worked. Despite record unemployment levels nationwide, healthcare remains a resilient job sector. Openings for registered nurses, physicians and surgeons are growing on a year-by-year basis, according to California's Employment Development Department. Where patients will be sent for care is an even greater concern than where medical workers seek employment, said Gersh. A medical office adjacent to Irvine Regional will stay open, but physicians there will have to perform major operations elsewhere during the closure. "This last weekend I had a patient come over to the emergency room (at Irvine Regional), and I had to send her over to Saddleback Memorial Medical Center," she said." I went from walking down the hall to fighting Friday night traffic." "What kind of continuity of care is that?" she asked. In dire situations, patients will be rushed to the next-nearest hospitals, including Saddleback Memorial in Laguna Hills, Western Medical Center in Anaheim, and Hoag in Newport Beach. Kaiser Permanente Orange County-Irvine Medical Center, across the street from Irvine Regional, has also agreed to absorb some of the burden in its emergency room. Kaiser is required by federal law to screen everyone who enters its E.R. and to deliver services to anyone needing emergency care, but the hospital charges non-members' insurance providers out-of-pocket fees for treatment. Unlike Irvine Regional and 12 other Orange County hospitals, including Hoag and Saddleback, Kaiser is also not licensed to deliver interventional care to heart attack patients. "I think the people of Irvine are being left bare until the hospital reopens," said Grossman. By This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it Contact the writer: This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it or 949-553-2915 Register reporter Colin Stewart contributed to this report. Source: http://www.ocregister.com/articles/irvine-hospital-regional-2279746-hoag-medical THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER » Post Comment
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