Marina hospital takeover planned
Monday, April 05, 2004
SOUTH BAY: Activists are trying to get Tenet Healthcare to give the Daniel Freeman facility to the community.

By Lee Peterson Daily Breeze

Emboldened by their success last year in pressuring a giant health-care company to keep open Daniel Freeman Marina Hospital, community activists are organizing a serious bid to take over and run the Marina del Rey-adjacent facility.

The idea is to accept the small hospital as a donation and convert it to nonprofit status, which while it may not be owner Tenet Healthcare's first choice, it is something that Tenet said is possible when in January it put 14 of its hospitals in Los Angeles County up for sale.

The community group We CAHRE (Community Action for Healthcare Reform and Education), is using its same battle-tested formula of enlisting doctors, lawyers and other professionals in its cause, and networking to secure broad support from business groups and local politicians.

We CAHRE is the flip side of the group Save Our Marina Hospital, which mobilized in 2002 to stop Tenet from closing the 166-bed hospital on Lincoln Boulevard.

The difference this time is that instead of court orders and community pressure, the group has assembled a team of health-care executives to run the hospital, and will have to raise operating capital -- the goal is $10 million.

There may be profit-oriented investor groups that have formed to try to buy the two Daniel Freeman hospitals, which includes Daniel Freeman Memorial in Inglewood, but We CAHRE founder and Executive Director Julie Inouye likes her group's chances.

"We are very hopeful to partner with Tenet. And we have a long history with Tenet and we really believe that this would be a good gesture on behalf of Tenet, because they said they believed in this market and said they wanted to do the best for this community."

With its organization, previous achievements and the fact that it started planning a year and a half ago to accept the hospital should Tenet want to donate it, We CAHRE figures as an example and a likely leader among community groups vying for a free hospital.

In announcing the sale on Jan. 28, Tenet said it would do whatever it could to ensure that the for-sale facilities would continue to remain open as hospitals, and would work with qualified community groups to do so.

Tenet spokesman David Langness said it is still too early in the sales process to start meeting with those community groups. There are buyers who have expressed interest in all the hospitals, and first it has to be determined which of the hospitals can be sold.

Failing that, then it could be time to make arrangements with qualified community groups.

"We are willing to meet with those groups and talk to them, we are just not at that point yet," Langness said.

It may not yet be time to talk to Tenet, but We CAHRE is wasting no time in reaching out for sources of support or influence. It has already met with the office of Los Angeles Councilwoman Cindy Miscikowski, whose district includes Daniel Freeman Marina, and the mayor's business team.

The group has lined up a former chief of the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services, Liston Witherill, and health-care executive Gerard Duiker, as a management team for the hospital.

Support is already coming in for the group's efforts.

"We know what's ahead of us is a monumental task, and we are up for it," Inouye said. "Everyone wants to help the little train that possibly could. Everyone realizes we have great potential here."

Tenet purchased the two Daniel Freeman Hospitals in December 2001 for $55 million. In May 2002, Tenet announced it would close Daniel Freeman Marina that summer. It was never allowed to, and a year later was announcing that it was keeping open the facility and investing $4 million in it.

Langness said $1 million of that has already been spent, including projects like a new roof. The rest of the money is still allocated for the projects, and the equipment and upgrades are coming, pending permit approval from the state hospital development agency.