FTC Grants Approval for Merger of Hospitals : Health care: Opponents say they wanted more time to fight the linkage of St. John’s in Oxnard and Pleasant Valley in Camarillo.

The Federal Trade Commission on Thursday gave its permission for Pleasant Valley Hospital in Camarillo to merge with St. John’s Regional Medical Center in Oxnard, clearing the way for the local hospital officials to complete the deal.

The surprise announcement was applauded by hospital officials who said it validated their contention that the merger is vital to keeping Camarillo’s only hospital financially solvent.

But it also angered opponents who wanted more time to fight the merger, which they fear will ultimately result in the closing of Pleasant Valley Hospital.

Dan Higgins, attorney for Pleasant Valley Hospital, said that the Federal Trade Commission was the only major regulatory hurdle facing the merger, and that hospital officials did not need clearance from the California attorney general, as some have suggested.

The Camarillo Health Care District, which built Pleasant Valley Hospital in 1974 and then transferred it to a nonprofit corporation in 1983, has been urged to seize the hospital through its power of eminent domain. Higgins said such a seizure would kill the merger.

Meanwhile, St. John’s officials plan immediately to start reviewing Pleasant Valley’s financial records, said Jayne Bull, St. John’s executive vice president and chief operating officer. “Any time you go into a merger, I think you have to know everything about each other,” she said.

Bull said hospital officials hope to conclude the transaction by early 1993. St. John’s is one of 13 hospitals owned by Catholic Healthcare West, based in San Francisco.

Although St. John’s said it has no plans to close Pleasant Valley Hospital, Camarillo residents and physicians said they fear that Pleasant Valley will suffer reductions in service when purchased by its neighboring hospital and then be shut down altogether.

“I’m concerned that, at some point, they will say we have tried to run the hospital well and it just isn’t working out,” said Dr. Gary Alpern, who practices at Pleasant Valley and is on the staff at St. John’s. “I don’t know how long they can make those guarantees.”

Bull said she cannot understand where people have gotten the notion that St. John’s will close Pleasant Valley. “We have never said . . . we would close this hospital,” she said. “What we have said is, ‘We don’t think it’s in the best interests of the community to do that.’ ”

But she agreed that she could not offer any long-term guarantees demanded by Alpern and other concerned Camarillo residents. “In any business, I don’t care what business it is, you’re never going to say never to anything,” she said.

Bull said St. John’s owners have agreed to absorb a $22-million debt racked up by Pleasant Valley Hospital. “Why would they be spending $22 million if there was any consideration of (closing the hospital)?” she asked.

But merger opponents said the Federal Trade Commission’s prompt decision underscores their growing distrust of statements by hospital officials. For example, they said, the FTC decision came only 30 days after the merger application had been filed, not the six to eight months that hospital officials had said it would take.

“Everybody’s angry,” said Dr. Richard S. Loft, who practices at Pleasant Valley and is on the staff at St. John’s. “They feel they were led down the garden path. The doctors, the medical staff were all very surprised . . . and disappointed at our leadership because they really have not been candid with us or honest.”

Bull and Pleasant Valley spokeswoman Carol Keochekian said officials had based their prediction of six to eight months for FTC approval on the experience of other hospital mergers in California in the past two years. Keochekian said that unlike its handling of other proposals, the FTC had not requested additional information to support its merger application.

The extra months of delay were important to Camarillo residents and physicians who hope to block the merger. They are awaiting the results of an audit of Pleasant Valley’s financial records to determine the validity of a mushrooming deficit that threatens to close the hospital within several years.

That audit, which is costing the Camarillo Health Care District $25,000, has been slow to get under way because of a misunderstanding between health care district and Pleasant Valley officials over what documents were being requested, Keochekian said. She said several years worth of independent audits and two merger feasibility studies were released to auditors Wednesday.

Camarillo Health Care District board member Gary Norris said the district will continue with the audit. He said the board has yet to reject the idea of taking over Pleasant Valley by eminent domain.

Norris said the merger raises questions about one hospital company gaining an unfair hold on the heath care market in the Oxnard-Camarillo area. “I’m surprised that it didn’t warrant a closer exam” by the FTC, he said.

Keochekian said the Pleasant Valley board of trustees will discuss, at its next meeting, the health care district’s recent requests to delay the merger until the audit is completed, and to consider the district as a merger partner rather than St. John’s.