Following the acquisition of Pacific Hospital in Long Beach by Santa Fe Springs-based College Health Enterprises Inc. (CHE), Senator Ricardo Lara and Assemblymember Bonnie Lowenthal have come out in opposition to the sale through public letters.

Each letter, both addressed to T. Scott Vivona, Chief of Field Operations for the California Department of Public Health (CDPH), was vitriolic in its criticism of CHE, which included allegations of employee and patient misconduct and unethical behavior leading to court settlements.

“The concerns that have been brought to my attention are serious,” Lara stated in his letter. “[They] include mismanagement and mistreatment of patients, alleged supervisor misconduct toward patients and employees, a $1.6 million out-of-court settlement with the City of Los Angeles, [and] recent employee CDPH complaints regarding two reports of patient discharge violations.”

That infamous case—also brought up in Lowenthal’s letter—occurred in 2009 after College Hospital Costa Mesa and College Hospital Cerritos, both operated by CHE, were accused of dumping discharged psychiatric patients along Los Angeles’s Skid Row. CHE was ordered to pay $1.2M towards charitable organizations in the area as well as a $400,000 fine to the City of Los Angeles.

Lowenthal went into deeper detail regarding the many issues surrounding CHE’s operations, providing specific stats in her letter.

“Hospital employees have also raised workplace safety concerns,” Lowenthal wrote, “including an alarming increase in injuries resulting from violent assaults by patients at College Hospital Cerritos over the last several years. In 2012 there were 38 injuries to workers that were inflicted by patients according to the Cal/OSHA logs. These assaults included stabbings, punching, biting, and being pushed. There have also been three sexual assaults committed between patients, and 18 patients escapes reported since 2010—including several that were deemed to be a danger to themselves or others.”

The sale of the hospital comes at a controversial time for Pacific Hospital itself: earlier this year, the FBI and IRS served the organization search warrants. Allegations of fraud have plagued the institution, which was ordered to pay a quarter-million dollar fine after a 2009 case revealed an employee had been accessing confidential patient information.

The investigations remain unclear as the agencies involved—FBI, IRS, California Department of Labor, California Department of Insurance, USPS Inspector General’s Office and the DCIS—continue their work.

Pacific Hospital was purchased in 1997 by HealthSmart Pacific Inc.

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