By LAURENCE DARMIENTO
Staff Reporter
When Tenet Healthcare Corp. announced it would close financially struggling St.
Luke Medical Center in north Pasadena, there was community grumbling. Even so,
the hospital closed its doors sooner than expected.
Months later, the Santa Barbara-based company announced plans to close
The difference? A small band of community and health
care activists has waged a relentless some might say quixotic campaign to
save the Marina del Rey facility.
Tenet is under attack by area politicians and has been hauled into court by the
state Attorney General’s office, which plans to seek a preliminary injunction
this week to stop the closure on grounds that Tenet has not met legal
conditions for closing the facility.
“I don’t think they thought anyone would take them to task,” said Julie Inouye,
co-founder of the ad hoc group Save Our Marina Hospital and wife of a physician
with staff privileges at the hospital. “But the whole community is abuzz. My
phone is ringing off the hook.”
Uphill battle
Tenet officials say they have met all conditions, and still expect to shutter
the facility unless a buyer can be found.
Last December, Tenet purchased the 166-bed facility and its sister
Since the $57 million sale involved the transfer of the hospitals from a
non-profit to a for-profit operator, Attorney General
Bill Lockyer had the authority to review the
transaction.
But faced with the hospitals’ possible closure should the sale not go through, Lockyer approved the transactions, though with conditions.
They included a requirement that Tenet continue to operate the larger Memorial
hospital, with no such requirement for the
However, the attorney general did require that Tenet solicit public input and
consult with community healthcare organizations as part of a “comprehensive
planning process” in mapping out the
It is here where activists say Tenet has failed most blatantly, stirring up the
opposition.
Terry Conner, president of the Villa Marina Council Inc., which represents
1,635 condominium owners across from the hospital, said Tenet officials never
bothered to contact his group.
“They could have done this and paid nothing but lip service to the community,
and at least satisfied the conditions the attorney general put down on them,”
Conner said. “But they are arrogant, and they don’t care.”
The activists have lobbied elected officials into opposing the closure. Among
them: U.S. Rep. Jane Harman, state Sen. Deborah Bowen, County Supervisor Yvonne
Brathwaite Burke and Assemblyman George Nakano.
During a county hearing on the closure last month, Bowen, who lives in the area,
noted sarcastically that Tenet’s actions reminded her of Ernest Hemingway’s
novel, “The Scum also Rises.”
Bowen is angered by the fact that Tenet, which has acknowledged shopping the
7.3-acre site to developers, could likely reap a huge profit by selling a
medical center that serves a graying population.
“Should a private buyer be allowed a huge financial windfall from these
non-profit assets?” said Bowen. “There are people alive today because there is
an ER there.”
Tenet spokesman David Langness seemed taken aback by
the level of vitriol the proposed closure has prompted. “It’s really
unfortunate,” he said. “What’s happened is that many of the people in the
activist group and some elected officials have weighed in on this subject
without knowing what Tenet has done.”
Rare opposition
The company has seen this level of opposition only once before, he said, when
it proposed closing the emergency room at an East Bay hospital in Pinole as
part of a plan to merge services with another nearby Tenet hospital. Tenet went
ahead with the plan two years ago despite opposition from the Contra Costa
County Board of Supervisors.
However, opponents of the
In seeking a preliminary injunction on Tuesday, the Attorney General’s office
will argue that Tenet has not met Lockyer’s
conditions, such as meeting with community groups prior to the announced
closure.
“We are certainly very much aware of the community involvement and are aware of
the activists, and that is something that is important when you have a
significant facility or closure,” said Sandra Michioku,
a spokeswoman for Lockyer.
Tenet officials have said they would talk to any prospective buyer, but doubt
there is any company willing to operate the hospital given its history as a
small, underutilized facility.