Plans for new hospital dead on arrival

This story appeared in the Antelope Valley Press May 8, 2001.

By BOB WILSON
Valley Press Staff Writer

LANCASTER - Antelope Valley Hospital Chief Executive Officer Mathew Abraham said Monday he was unsure whether they would be able to speed up plans for constructing a full-service hospital in Palmdale now that the city's negotiations with a private builder have fallen through.

That position is the same one AV Hospital has espoused for years, Palmdale Mayor Jim Ledford said.

"I don't think they've ever had a plan" for building an inpatient facility with emergency care in Palmdale, Ledford said. "It's all smoke. That's why we've been looking for other partners."

"They should just tell people that instead of interfering when we bring in a new potential operator," he said. "Instead, they've created an environment where they've raised fears about going head-to-head with a new competitor."

On Friday, Palmdale City Manager Bob Toone and Dr. Jacob Terner, head of Prospect Medical Holdings Inc., confirmed that exclusive negotiations between the city and the medical group had flat-lined.

That means the city again is extending its offer of up to $5 million in assistance to any entity willing to construct a full-service hospital in conjunction with development of a senior citizen housing complex, Toone said.

Letters extending that offer were to be sent Monday to Antelope Valley Hospital and Lancaster Community Hospital. The goal was to give the local providers another chance to build in Palmdale, the city manager said.

Abraham said Monday that until that letter is received, he would not speculate on whether AV Hospital would speed up its own plans to build in the south Antelope Valley.

"I really haven't had time to see how (the demise of Prospect's plan) is going to come into play," Abraham said. "My understanding was that (the city's financial offer) was only available in selected parts of the city,"

If that is not the case, he would have to analyze the city's offer to see how much of the assistance would be for senior housing and how much would be for hospital construction, he said.

The hospital's immediate goal is to open its new care clinic, which is nearing completion at 40th Street East and Palmdale Boulevard, Abraham said. "That is something that will be on the radar screen for the next 90 to 120 days."

"Once that is opened and operational, we can start planning for what kinds of (patient) volumes and admissions we could expect" at a full-service hospital, he said.

Palmdale's dealings with Prospect have only served to delay AV Hospital's plans for improving medical care in the south Valley, AV Hospital board member Gary Hill said.

"It's unfortunate that Prospect threw out these great hopes and didn't have what it took to back them up," Hill said.

Because of the city's negotiations with Prospect, AV Hospital turned its attention to its main campus in Lancaster, remodeling its skilled-nursing facility, adding 40 new medical-surgical beds, planning a new radiology center and preparing to seismically retrofit its primary structures, he said.

Now, the board "will assess the impact of Prospect dying off and how that fits into our long-range plans," he said. "We will probably discuss it at our May 23 board meeting."

Hill declined to estimate how soon the hospital might be able to proceed with plans to expand the new clinic by erecting inpatient facilities at the same location.

"Right now, we don't have the nurses to staff another hospital," he said.

Also, it would be unwise for AV Hospital to spread its financial resources too thin, he added.

"If we take on a project that over-expands the facilities of the hospital and that weakens our capability to provide top-notch care for the whole district, then I have harmed the district and I have not fulfilled my obligation and responsibility that I was elected to fulfill," Hill said.

Ledford said AV Hospital's lack of commitment was a return to the status quo.

"This should already be part of an overall strategy to move forward," he said. "If they're not going to do it for us, they should just get out of the way and allow us to do what we need to do to develop a new hospital" without lobbying against it publicly and privately.

Palmdale will continue to "aggressively" seek a firm or group willing to build, "and we will find one," he said.