Nonprofit Status Could Provide Hospital Cure : S.D. General’s mission also needs surgery

Trying to be a for-profit hospital in a low-income, inner-city community--as San Diego General Hospital has been attempting to do--defies logic.

It would be tough enough if the hospital were nonprofit, which it should be, given the current health care crisis in California.

Patient care costs the hospital $200,000 more a month than it gets in state funds, according to the local hospital council. As a result, the Southeast San Diego hospital has limped from one financial emergency to another over the years. Remissions from its ailments have been few.

In the latest crisis, no new patients are being admitted and ambulances are told to “bypass” the hospital’s emergency room. In other words, go somewhere else.

But “somewhere else” is also feeling the burden. UC San Diego Medical Center, for instance, has had to go on “bypass” for short periods. And Mercy Hospital is taking in a substantial number of emergency room patients.

If San Diego General’s problems are not resolved, the problem could spread. The approximately 105,000 city residents served by San Diego General will have to travel farther for care and wait longer in emergency rooms in other hospitals. So will San Diegans from those hospitals’ communities. The problem could be exacerbated if illnesses and injuries go untreated until they become emergencies.

And other hospitals will be hit financially if they must absorb the costs of treating more uninsured or underinsured patients.

If San Diego General is to have any reasonable chance for survival a way must be found to convert it to nonprofit status. Its mission also probably should be redefined in cooperation with other hospitals.

Such a cooperative arrangement was proposed last year for maternity care, but San Diego General’s financial problems overtook the proposal.

It is unrealistic to expect other hospitals, mostly nonprofit institutions, or the taxpayers to provide resources to a for-profit hospital. The current owners are negotiating a sale with the hope that new owners can take it nonprofit. But that’s a long shot because of the hospital’s debts, Internal Revenue Service troubles and state licensing problems. So there’s no easy answer.

But if the hospital closes--either because it cannot pay its bills or because daily state inspections show inadequate patient care--the whole community will suffer. That’s why a plan to make it nonprofit must be pursued with renewed vigor.