Community Hospital Long Beach (CHLB) held a grand reopening for its emergency department on Wednesday, May 12 after nearly three years of closure.
“We, along with countless residents and first responders, are thrilled for this reopening,” said John Molina, Founder Partner of Pacific6 and the operator of Community Hospital Long Beach. “Three years was far too long for East Long Beach to go without these necessary, vital, life-saving services and our team couldn’t be prouder to serve our community once again.”
CHLB has been on a years-long hiatus after it closed in the summer of 2018 due to its inability to meet the state’s seismic compliance requirements.
“As we all know, we live kind of in earthquake country here. Nobody, no building, no business, no residency is immune to our seismic environment,” CHLB Executive Director Matthew Faulkner told the Signal Tribune. “What we were able to do through working in partnership with the City and MWN is determine that we could save and preserve the vital acute care components.”
These vital care components include emergency room surgery and intensive care units, both of which were previously housed in the Heritage Building on the CHLB campus. The building was retrofitted for seismic events twice, he said.
“Community Hospital is a Long Beach institution, and we were so happy to have it reopen earlier this year,” Mayor Robert Garcia said. “It’s services like their emergency department that our community needs easy access to, and I’m thankful for the entire team that worked to make this reopening happen.”
The three-year process was undertaken with close consideration of community needs— involving a task force, public forums and input from community leaders.
“The opening of the Emergency Department represents a huge milestone for Community Hospital. Area residents will now have the 24/7 medical services that have been so critically needed,” said Councilmember Daryl Supernaw, who has been a fierce advocate for the hospital’s reopening.
In January 2021, CHLB was granted state licensure and was allowed to reopen for transfer patients in order to free up other hospitals to care for COVID-19 patients.
See related: Community Hospital to reopen for transfer patients after being granted state licensure
The emergency department currently counts 20 emergency beds and serves walk-in and transfer patients. It immediately began to serve patients as of noon on Wednesday, May 12.
911 ambulatory and paramedic services will begin to utilize the hospital’s emergency department later this month after final approval from Los Angeles County Emergency Medical Services.
“We have been so thoroughly inspected and the place has been gone over with a fine-tooth comb, so you can be assured that you will have high quality, very safe, excellent health care here,” Faulkner said. “We look forward to the community utilizing Community Hospital and we look forward to the community supporting us as we go forward to sustain these services.”
Emma DiMaggio and Karla Enriquez contributed to this report.
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