Financially Ailing La Mirada Medical Center to Shut Down

The 145-bed Medical Center of La Mirada will shut down Sunday, ending months of speculation that the financially troubled hospital would close unless it could be sold.

All but emergency operations will close today, and the emergency room will cease operations Sunday, hospital officials said.

Nu-Med Inc., which leases the hospital from Medical Properties Inc. of Encino, has been transferring patients to other hospitals or discharging them since Tuesday, when the hospital’s 300 employees were told of the closure. The hospital has been averaging 30 patients a day for several months, but only 12 remained Tuesday, said a hospital employee who asked not to be identified.

The employee said workers were incensed at the way Nu-Med handled the situation. “Usually when a hospital closes, it has to give 30 to 60 days notice. We only had five days. People here are working basically for the sake of people in the hospital. Corporate has poorly managed this place,” she said.

Most employees will be laid off Sunday, but the hospital is trying to help them find jobs in health care, chief of staff Dr. Jackie See said.

Nu-Med President Kenneth Rappoport said the decision to close the hospital was made late last week because of continuing losses. He would not disclose the figures, but See said he was told the hospital had been losing $500,000 a month for the past six months.

William Hartauer, president of Medical Properties, said Nu-Med has not paid $1.1 million in rent due since last October. Medical Properties has reported a $945,000 net loss for the first quarter ending March 31.

Rappoport called the closure of the hospital--which is La Mirada’s only acute-care facility--temporary and said he hopes it will be reopened by Nu-Med or by new owners.

The hospital is the eighth to close in the last year in the six counties stretching from Santa Barbara County to Orange County that make up the Hospital Council of Southern California, spokesman David Langness said.

“No one is excited about this,” said Sandy White, the hospital’s marketing and public relations director. “The full impact of this has not hit the city yet. It will now take people who live in the area 10 to 15 minutes longer to get to an emergency room,” she said.

Opinions vary on how the hospital, which was built in 1962 at Imperial Highway and La Mirada Boulevard, got into trouble. One staff physician said when Nu-Med took over in the early 1980s, the facility was immediately refinanced for more than it was worth and a cash-flow problem resulted.

See said La Mirada, like some other hospitals, became caught up with the problem of insurance reimbursements that did not match the cost of services.