MAILBAG: Noisy ‘chillers’ at hospital will be silenced

We at South Coast Medical Center would like to share with the community why we have had to install temporary chillers and the generators to run them in our Physicians Center West parking lot near Coast Highway for the last several months. We want to inform you as to why it has taken so long to repair the existing chillers located in our Central Plant, and also bring you up to date on our progress in making these repairs.

Much to our dismay, the existing chillers broke down this past spring. This equipment is absolutely necessary to provide cooling for the entire hospital, and most critically to the surgery department and operating suites, thus providing services our patients desperately need “” especially in emergency situations. We were immediately faced with finding a temporary solution until the existing chillers could be repaired.

This meant finding the fastest source for temporary rental equipment we could “” and a place to put it “” so we could keep the hospital in operation. In this case, there was only one location to accommodate the chillers and generators and still provide access on the streets, parking in our lots for the patients on campus: a portion of the front parking lot of the property.

We knew that both machines would need to be “re-tubed” as part of the repairs and that there are only a few companies in North America that provide this service for this particular type of equipment. We were able to find a company with a crew available to come to Laguna Beach to help us. What we didn’t know, which no one could have anticipated, is that the repairs were far more extensive than any of the experts thought. This is because the machines had to be physically “opened up,” (large “windows” cut in the exterior steel skins of the units), to both see the extent of the damage and allow access for the actual repairs. Additionally we discovered that portions of the machines had to be sent off-site to a third company to be rebuilt; this alone delayed the repairs five weeks.

The commitment we made for this repair involves hundreds of man hours of repair time and nearly $1 million in expense. As you can imagine, we did not budget for this unexpected expense. However, we have always pledged to provide the best care possible to the residents in the communities we serve, we knew we had to address this issue so that we could continue to operate.

We realize that the generators are very noisy and, for this, we sincerely apologize to our neighbors. We have promised that by Aug. 20 one of our chillers will be back online, and that half of the equipment in the lot will be gone, and the remaining equipment will not be operated at night.

We want to assure you, we are doing everything possible to expedite the completion of these repairs. We would like to thank the entire community for your understanding and patience with this situation and for your support of South Coast Medical Center.

BRUCE CHRISTIAN

President and chief executive of South Coast Medical Center.