Report details negative impacts of Community Hospital's closing

A report by Los Angeles County’s Emergency Medical Services Agency confirms concerns from members of the Long Beach and Signal Hill communities that closing Community Medical Center Long Beach would negatively impact local residents’ access to emergency medical and psychiatric services.
The impact-evaluation report was written based on information gathered at a community hearing requested by 4th District Supervisor Janice Hahn and held in Long Beach on April 11 on the proposed hospital closure. MemorialCare announced recently that they plan to closure the hospital by July 3, 2018— a full year earlier than previously planned.
“This report confirms what we have been worried about since the beginning,” Hahn said. “Closing Community Medical Center will hurt Long Beach and Signal Hill residents’ access to medical care in emergencies and put a strain on the entire county’s emergency services system.”
The report details impacts of closing Community Medical Center Long Beach including:
• Longer travel times to reach emergency services
• Longer out-of-service times for EMS personnel engaged in patient transports to more distant hospitals resulting in possible delays in emergency services
• Loss of geographic availability of basic emergency department services for residents of east Long Beach, Signal Hill and northwest Seal Beach
• Longer wait times for patients experiencing non-life-threatening illness or injury in emergency departments of surrounding hospitals
• Loss of 30 critical-care beds
• Loss of 28 psychiatric beds
• Relocation of only Sexual Assault Response Team in Long Beach, which currently operates out of Community Medical Center Long Beach
The full report, which will be presented to the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday, May 1, is available at file.lacounty.gov/SDSInter/bos/supdocs/122471.pdf.
Source: Hahn’s office