Community Hospital is scheduled to close in two weeks, but the East Long Beach facility’s potential new operator said Monday it doesn’t have to.
The City Council on Tuesday will consider authorizing a contract with the Molina, Wu, Network health group, composed of John and Mario Molina (formerly of Molina Healthcare) and Dr. Jonathan Wu, chair of AHMC Healthcare. (John Molina is a partner in Pacific6, which is the parent company of the Long Beach Post.)
Long Beach City Council to Consider Approving New Operator for Community Hospital
Community Hospital’s CEO John Bishop said Friday MemorialCare is willing to facilitate all the legal and regulatory approvals in connection with operating the facility, which the city owns. But MemorialCare has every intention to shutter the hospital by July 3, he said, despite the city’s request to transition to the new operator while keeping the doors open.
Bishop also criticized the city’s attempt to keep Community Hospital running despite a large active fault line revealed last year, which was the reason for the hospital’s announced closure. However, Mario Molina told the Post Monday that the city hired an architect in response to the seismic issue and MWN has come to the city with a plan.
“This only works if Memorial wants to cooperate, and if they don’t I think the people need to ask why not,” Mario said.
While Bishop has stated that contracts have been terminated and many employees have either left or are scheduled to leave at the beginning of the next month, Mario said the city’s workforce development group can help with staffing while AHMC acts as operator.
“It’s just a matter of Memorial’s willingness to cooperate, and while they say they want to cooperate, their actions are contrary to what they’re saying, and I don’t understand why they are in such a rush to close that hospital,” Mario said.
While MemorialCare previously said it would stop operating by June 30, 2019 (when the seismic compliance would be required) that date was pushed forward after an increased departure of staff seeking longer-term employment.
Mario said the healthcare group plans to take some of MemorialCare’s assets and repurpose them for some sort of an outpatient health care services that don’t need to be under a license.
In addition, the new operator has also offered to compensate MemorialCare, according to Mario, who acknowledged that the license to operate the hospital will also need to be transferred between networks, which could be done through a contractual agreement.
The current plan is to keep the hospital open with a smaller footprint, including about 40 beds, an emergency room and whatever else is needed to keep an acute care hospital open on a reduced basis.