Families ask hospital board to keep subacute services open Families ask hospital board to keep subacute services open (January 20, 2006)

By Molly Tanenbaum

The El Camino Hospital board room was packed on Jan. 11 with families of subacute patients waiting for their turn to speak.

They wanted to let the board know their feelings on the hospital's November decision to shut down subacute services by December 2008, giving three years for very ill patients and their families to find a new facility.

The decision has upset not just patients and their families, but also the Service Employees International Union Local 715. That's because closing down the subacute ward would displace more than 40 nursing assistants, who are members of the union.

Five of the hospital's 44 subacute patients have been relocated already, according to Diana Russell, El Camino's vice president of patient care services. She said the hospital is legally required to give only 30 days notice to patients, and El Camino is allowing three years.

"We will assist them however we can," Russell said to the board.

Several subacute nursing assistants and patients' family members took the floor to express their grief and frustration about the hospital's decision.

Susan Pelkey, a subacute patient with Lou Gehrig's disease, attended the meeting in a wheelchair but had someone read a speech on her behalf, because she can no longer speak.

"As registered voters, my family and I approved the bond issue to build a new hospital to make El Camino safer and better able to serve the community, not to take away vitally needed services," Pelkey's speech said.

Other speakers reinforced her comments, saying that voters chose to grant El Camino the $148 million bond measure to build a new hospital, and that they would have voted differently had they known the subacute ward would be shut down.

Following the meeting, Russell told the Voice that the hospital's decision to stop offering subacute services was based on the rising number of acute care patients, and the need for increased vascular surgery, bariatric surgery and oncology.

Additionally, the number of emergency room visits has gone up by about 4,000 patients a year. In short, space shortage for acute care is already an issue, Russell said.

The original decision to shut down subacute care at El Camino was made by management, not the board. At the Jan. 11 meeting, board members took no action on the issue, but it could be a possible topic for discussion at a future meeting if a board member requests it, said vice-chair David Reeder.

In the meantime, the SEIU has plans to talk with doctors to make saving subacute services at El Camino a priority.

"We waited this long and they totally avoided the subject," said SEIU organizer Elsa Caballero after the meeting. "We'll do whatever it takes."

E-mail Molly Tanenbaum at mtanenbaum@mv-voice.com

E-mail a friend a link to this story.