New Hospital Pulls Out of County Trauma Unit

In another staggering blow to the Los Angeles County trauma-care network, officials at the Antelope Valley Hospital Medical Center said Friday the facility will pull out of the system by the end of the year, a move that surprised county officials.

Citing a lack of funds for indigent patients and a low reimbursement rate from the county for trauma care, spokeswoman Frankie Richards said directors of the Lancaster hospital will abandon the beleaguered trauma-care system Dec. 31 after suffering mounting financial losses.

The hospital’s decision will leave the entire Antelope Valley, the rest of northern Los Angeles County and portions of Kern and Inyo counties without a trauma center. The closest emergency rooms with special staff to treat the most serious accident and trauma injuries will be in Valencia and Mission Hills.

Antelope Valley, a 184-bed hospital, will become the fifth hospital to leave the trauma network this year and the second serving a largely rural area to defect from the troubled system.

Virginia Hastings, chief of the county’s paramedic and trauma hospital program, said officials were surprised by the Antelope Valley announcement and were scrambling to be able to eventually airlift trauma patients normally treated at the hospital to other trauma-care facilities.

Although not a large medical center, Antelope Valley is located in a key area in the northernmost portion of the county where a major highway to the Mammoth ski resorts and other popular recreational areas is the site of numerous automobile accidents. Auto accident victims form a high percentage of patients rushed to trauma centers, which offer special emergency care using specialists and high-technology equipment.

The Antelope Valley facility will continue to operate a 24-hour emergency room, despite severing its ties with the trauma network, Richards said Friday.

“We don’t want to give the impression that we are closing our doors because we’re not. We’ve been open for 32 years and have been treating trauma patients for that long,” said Richards, adding that patients could also be treated at two other private hospitals in the area.

However, as coordinator of the county’s trauma network, Hastings said there will be a substantial difference for trauma victims once Antelope Valley ends its contract.

“There is no doubt that (by withdrawing), the hospital is lowering the level of care in the area,” she said. “None of those hospitals will have any requirements to have a surgical team come in.”

The county’s trauma network was established nearly four years ago to guarantee victims of serious accidents or wounds a maximum 20-minute ambulance ride to a center. As a rural center, Antelope Valley had specialists on call for trauma victims.

The closest hospitals to Antelope Valley in the county trauma network are the Henry Mayo Newhall Memorial Hospital in Valencia and Holy Cross Hospital in Mission Hills, but if helicopters are used to transport trauma victims, they could be flown to other hospitals.

The pullout by Antelope Valley, which has treated about 200 trauma patients a year since joining the system in October, 1984, follows the defection of Queen of Valley Hospital in West Covina, which announced two weeks ago that it would leave the network.

Earlier this year, Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center and Daniel Freeman Memorial Hospital left the system. Santa Monica Hospital, a rural hospital that services the Malibu area, also departed after citing financial losses.

Pomona Valley Community Hospital dropped out of the trauma-care system in 1986 and California Medical Center in Los Angeles withdrew in 1985.

A system that once numbered 23 hospitals will dwindle to 16 by the end of the year.

Like the other hospitals, Richards cited financial losses from the trauma system for Antelope Valley’s decision to withdraw. During a nine-month period from May, 1986, through January, 1987, the hospital cared for 134 trauma patients at a cost of $1,293,000, she said. But the hospital received only $712,000 or 55% of the actual costs.

Richards added that funds for indigent trauma patients, or those who do not qualify for Medi-Cal, Medicare or who do not have private insurance coverage, is virtually nonexistent. She said hospital officials were also frustrated with the paper work involved in complying with county regulations and complained that the constant reviews by the county were “time consuming and costly at a time when we’re trying to cut costs.”