Doctors Medical Center to Close in April, Barring Miracle

By Andrew Stelzer

Doctors Medical Center in San Pablo will begin shutting its doors next month, barring an angel donor who can make up the hospital’s $18 million deficit.

The West Contra Costa County healthcare district voted Thursday night to begin giving employees two-weeks notice on April 7th, meaning operations would start winding down April 21st, and continue through June.

The hospital, which serves  the largely low-income residents of West Contra Costa County, has been in dire financial straits for almost 20 years. Voters approved parcel taxes in 2004 and 2011 to keep it afloat, but a third proposed tax in 2014 failed to gain the two-thirds majority needed.

Financial advisor Harold Emahiser said the problem is that 80 percent of the hospital's patients are on Medicare or Medi-cal, which doesn’t pay enough for services rendered.

“The issue here isn’t if the hospital was only run better," Emahiser said, "It was not run inefficiently."

"When you look at the cost per patient day compared to other (East Bay) hospitals, it was 24 percent lower. It's not a cost issue. It’s a revenue issue. It's reimbursement.” he added.

“Basically this hospital has to go down because it serves too many poor people. That’s not right,” said Michael Parker with the Richmond Progressive Alliance, one of many western Contra Costa residents who lamented the loss of a critical resource.

"Without this hospital, the residents of West Contra Costa will be deprived of meaningful health care anywhere near their homes," said Dr. Sharon Drager, who works at the hospital and serves on its governing body.

“As soon as the hospital closes they’ll lose an emergency room, an advanced cardiovascular unit, a cancer center, an advanced wound center, as well as medical and surgical inpatient and outpatient services. State of the art care for heart attacks will no longer be nearby but many miles away on crowded freeways. As soon as the hospital closes, the medical community will disappear. A hospital is an ecosystem. It's not a building."

But despite many dire predictions, virtually none of the 200 people at the meeting called for a significant delay.

“We've been closing for 10 years. Please set the date, Let us close with dignity," said Steven Scotty, who works in the cardiac catheter lab.

The board pushed back the closure date by one week, too see if a last minute proposal by San Diego entrepreneur Larry Anderson to buy the hospital can get off the ground. Anderson has received praise for the turnaround of Tri-City Medical Center in Oceanside, but was later fired from his job as CEO.

Anderson's proposal was only seen by Doctors Medical Center's lawyer Thursday morning. It includes a Chinese investor and $3 million contributed by the hospital's doctors. West Contra Costa County Healthcare District Board Vice-Chair John Gioia reluctantly supported the delay, to give the proposal a chance to come together.

“We can't go on faith when we decide our fiduciary obligations of whether to keep spending $2 million a month of taxpayer money in the hopes that somebody says they can turn something around," said Gioia.

At a cost of $500,000 a week, the hospital could keep running through July in hopes of a financial rescue, but then might not have enough money to pay what’s owed to employees and vendors.