Community Hospital Long Beach remains on track for a January reopening, with the hopes that doctors and nurses can begin seeing patients as flu season kicks in, organizers said Tuesday.
The 94-year-old East Long Beach hospital, which shuttered this summer over seismic compliance issues, still has a long road ahead as far as licensing and cost estimates, but new CEO Virg Narbutas said he’s optimistic that Community will soon reopen.
“I’m rushing as hard as I can to get this thing open as fast as we can,” he said at a community task force meeting on Monday.
Long Beach’s Economic Development Director John Keisler said the goal is to wrap up lease negotiations and bring a proposal to the City Council for approval in October.
The hospital’s former operator, MemorialCare Health System, closed Community’s emergency room in June because of seismic retrofitting issues that it said were not feasible to fix. However, the hospital agreed to suspend its license rather than letting it lapse, which should allow operators to reopen the facility quicker.
The city, which owns the land that the hospital sits on, chose the Molina, Wu, Network to take over Community. (John Molina is part of the Molina, Wu, Network’s bid. He is also a founding partner in Pacific6, the parent company of the Long Beach Post.)
Keisler said the city is in negotiations with Molina-Wu on the costs for seismic retrofitting and other details.
While Community plans to reopen with a smaller emergency room, the city is now conducting outreach to determine what other services it will offer to meet the needs of the community.
Those services could include mental health and women’s health needs, organizers said.