Hospital Works to Revive Project in Mission Hills

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With the meter running each day construction is delayed, Providence Holy Cross Medical Center has launched a media campaign to bolster support for a $180 million patient building that was halted after a successful court challenge.

Providence Health & Services kicked off the campaign with a Veterans Day rally at the Mission Hills construction site and then began running 30-second cable TV spots promoting the hospital’s contributions to health care in the San Fernando and San Gabriel valleys, including its role in treating victims of the MetroLink train collision.

The TV spot urges viewers to contact L.A. City Council members in support of resumption of the project.

“We just want L.A. to approve what already has been approved,” said Patricia Aidem, a spokeswoman for Providence, which is owned by a Seattle-based non-profit. “If they need to change their policies for future projects, fine. But we need to proceed. We have this huge frame just sitting there, and we have 200 construction jobs on hold and obligations to contractors.”

An L.A. Superior Court judge last month ordered Providence Holy Cross to halt work on the four-story patient care wing until the council re-examines the project and decides whether more environmental review is needed.

The expansion was originally approved by the city’s planning commission, despite opposition led by neighborhood groups and the Service Employees International Union, which was unsuccessful in organizing Holy Cross workers a few years ago. The opponents argue the expansion it is too big and will bring too much traffic congestion to the area.

“This is not a union issue, it’s a safety issue,” said Hilda Delgado, a spokeswoman for Community Advocates for Responsible Expansion, the coalition representing the union and neighborhood groups. Delgado is employed by the union.

Eight of the council’s 15 members voted last year to overturn the commission’s decision, but the project went forward because it was determined at the time that city law required 10 votes to overrule the commission. However, when the project was legally challenged in September, Judge Thomas McKnew ruled the city didn’t follow proper procedures and must take another vote.

Councilman Greig Smith recently introduced a motion that would enable the hospital to resume construction, but the coalition wants the city to force the hospital to prepare a full environmental impact report. The report would give them more leverage to demand traffic, parking and other impacts be better mitigated.

Providence contends the less-detailed studies it provided earlier are sufficient and delaying the project another 18 to 24 months while a full EIR is prepared will cost the hospital at least $50 million, including late fees paid to contractors.

Hospital closures this decade have reduced the number of hospital beds in the San Fernando Valley by around 400, and Aidem said her 254-bed hospital badly needs the additional beds. Holy Cross regularly operates at full capacity and often holds patients in the emergency department longer than necessary until rooms are available.

The expansion, which had been scheduled to be completed in spring 2010, would add 101 beds, with the capability to be reconfigured to add 35 beds later.


Herbalife Comes to Ecuador

Nutritional supplement distributor Herbalife Ltd. said it has launched operations in Ecuador, its eighth market in South America and the 70th country where it is doing business.

The Los Angeles company, which sells its weight loss and health products via independent distributors, plans to open a distribution center in Quito during the first quarter of next year. Until then, distributors in the country will be able to place orders via fax, telephone, and e-mail.

The company is starting out small in the new market with just three products: its flagship Formula 1 Nutritional Shake Mix, a protein powder and a popular herbal tea concentrate. More products will be introduced later next year.


U.S. HealthWorks Acquisition

U.S. HealthWorks Medical Group, an operator of occupational health care centers, said that it had acquired Pinnacle HealthCare’s medical center in Gilroy for an undisclosed amount.

The acquisition expands Valencia-based U.S. HealthWorks’ presence in the Northern California market to 19 medical centers, with a total of 63 in California. The Gilroy medical center is a full-service, walk-in medical center offering occupational medicine and urgent care services.

U.S. HealthWorks Medical Group was founded in 1995 and is the largest operator of occupational health care centers in

California.


Staff reporter Deborah Crowe can be reached [email protected] or at (323) 549-5225, ext. 232.

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