New hospital branch slated for Palmdale

This story appeared in the Antelope Valley Press May 19, 2001.

By BOB WILSON
Valley Press Staff Writer

LANCASTER - With one member absent, the board of directors of Antelope Valley Hospital voted unanimously Thursday to seek investors and lay plans for construction of a branch hospital in Palmdale.

Seven local physicians interested in backing the effort participated in the board's discussion and spoke in favor of the move.

Dr. Abdullah Farrukh, the fifth member of the board, said earlier in the week he supported the idea but missed Thursday's vote because he was performing surgery.

As an elected member of the panel, Farrukh is prohibited under state conflict-of-interest regulations from investing in the new project but he was not prohibited from voting on it.

But Farrukh's professional colleagues expressed excitement about the prospect of having more patient beds in the Antelope Valley.

"This is not a thing that is likely to be financially or economically rewarding, but every day in practice, we find the need to provide services that we (now) cannot, and (we) become very frustrated," said Dr. Pradeep Damle, chief of staff of Lancaster Community Hospital and an internal medicine and pulmonary specialist.

"But I'm very happy that AV (Hospital) is taking the lead, and we want to make sure that we can contribute in any way that is possible to make a hospital and more beds," Damle said.

Expanding the bed count would permit physicians to treat more people, which should stem the exodus of patients to facilities outside the Valley, he said.

According to a 1999 study by the Camden Group, local hospital overcrowding, a limited number of physicians and medical specialists, and contractual employer-insurance programs force about 28% of potential patients to medical facilities outside the area.

Expanding the bed count also would permit physicians to speed the treatment of emergency-room patients who now are forced to wait 24 to 48 hours for admission, Damle said. "This is really not an acceptable situation."

In addition, the expansion should attract new physicians experienced in specialties that compliment those already available, providing a broader range of care to all who reside in the area - including physicians, he noted. But it will be important to expand and duplicate existing services.

"If we are talking in terms of duplicating all the services we have at AV Hospital in Palmdale, I don't think I would support that," Damle said. "We need to provide complimentary things in which AV has not invested its resources.

"That way, people will have a choice - they may go to AV; they may go to the new Palmdale hospital, but still in the area, they will get everything they need," he said.

Between 40 and 50 local physicians have expressed interest in participating in the project, Damle said.

That participation will be akin to investing in their own practices, he said.

"None of us really want to own a hospital," Damle said, noting that nearly every medical facility in the state is operating at a financial loss. "But we certainly want to see this new facility come because then we will be able to practice better medicine."

Increasing the level of satisfaction for both patient and physician will be the return on the investment, he said.

Since it will take as many as five years to build a new facility, it is imperative to begin planning that facility now, said Dr. Satya Dandamudi, an internal-medicine specialist.

"If you go back and look at the number of beds we had in this Valley 25-some years ago ... if you count those beds and count the beds we have now, we are operating with fewer beds and fewer critical-care beds than we had 25 years ago," Dandamudi said.

The Valley's continued population growth during those 25 years has only exacerbated that problem, he said.

Dandamudi and Damle were accompanied by Dr. Mohamed Lameer, orthopedic surgeon; Dr. Anil Kumar, cardiologist; Dr. Doddanna Krishna, internal medicine and pulmonary specialist; Dr. Gurdarshan Gill, anesthesiologist; and Dr. Richard Hahn, general surgeon and vascular specialist.

Thursday's vote by the board was an affirmation of its intention to begin moving forward, said Mathew Abraham, AV Hospital's chief executive officer.

The hospital now must identify project investors, reach an agreement on what should be built and where, hire an architect and come up with a design for approval by all parties, Abraham said.

"I think the first order of business will be to send out a letter to the medical staff saying the board has voted to do this and solicit their interest and input as well as their support of this whole process," he said.

"And we'll try to get the bottom line up so it's an attractive investment," said board member Don Bean, injecting a little levity into the proceedings.

With every hospital in the state required to meet more stringent construction standards to keep them operating after severe earthquakes, "We need to plan now in order to meet the needs of the year 2008 and beyond, which is when the (state) seismic upgrades and retrofitting requirements will affect (AV) hospital" as well as the others in the Antelope Valley, Lancaster Community and High Desert, Abraham said.