Olive View Marks Rebuilding Anniversary

Twenty-six years after its predecessor was destroyed in the 1971 Sylmar earthquake, Olive View-UCLA Medical Center in Sylmar celebrated the 10th anniversary of its rebirth Friday.

The original 888-bed hospital was only a month old in February 1971 when the magnitude 6.4 temblor reduced much of its main building to rubble.

Los Angeles County was forced to demolish the medical center and for 16 years operated a temporary 123-bed facility in Van Nuys.

A few years after Olive View reopened in 1987, it forged a partnership with the UCLA School of Medicine and adopted its current name. The new medical center, with 377 beds, is smaller than the original but has come a long way in improving the quality and variety of services it offers, said the medical director, Dr. William Loos.

“The volume of services has increased tremendously and we now have a higher percentage of outpatients to inpatients that we had in the past,” he said.

“To me, the mission has always been the same: to take care of mostly indigent patients, people without medical insurance,” he said.