Kaiser to Open Empty Baldwin Park Hospital

Citing a surge in membership, Kaiser Permanente said Thursday that it will open part of a Baldwin Park hospital that has stood empty since it was built in 1994 as a showcase for the HMO.

The decision to open the hospital this fall reverses a 1996 announcement that Kaiser would turn over the facility to a Catholic-owned hospital chain, San Francisco-based Catholic Healthcare West. A Kaiser spokesman said the group voluntarily withdrew from the project.

Kaiser’s membership in the San Gabriel Valley has surged by 40,000 members to more than 150,000 in the last two years, said Kaiser spokesman Jim Anderson.

“It gets us to a point where it makes sense to open a portion of the hospital,” he said.

After several years of flat or diminishing membership, Kaiser has adopted an aggressive pricing strategy in recent years that has helped it win back members.

Initially, Oakland-based Kaiser will operate as many as 100 beds in the facility, which has a 240-bed capacity. The hospital will include intensive-care and emergency-room services, Anderson said. The facility is near the intersection of the 605 and 10 freeways.

Kaiser said the opening will involve an unusual degree of union-management cooperation. Nursing, technical, maintenance and other employees will be closely involved in the planning.