West Hills Hospital and Medical Center broke ground May 10 on a 47,000-square-foot addition which is scheduled to open some time in 2008, as about a dozen union employees were on hand to protest staffing levels. Beverly Gilmore, CEO of West Hills Hospital, said the hospital’s expansion is extremely important to San Fernando Valley residents at a time when hospitals and emergency rooms across Los Angeles County are closing. “We are one of the few hospitals dedicated to expanding our ability to provide first-rate emergency and critical care to our patients,” Gilmore said. “In the last 10 years there have been 53 hospitals and 73 emergency rooms that have closed in California,” Gilmore added. “Why would one hospital close and another be making a $40 million investment? My theory is that a community hospital can be successful as long as they are evolving to meet the changing needs and expectations of a community.” The upgrade will include a two-story, 47,000-square-foot-addition, the first floor of which will house a 24-bed emergency department with sophisticated equipment and specialized treatment areas. The expansion will also double the number of beds in the hospital’s intensive care unit from 16 to 34. Dr. Alan Kuban, the hospital’s chief of staff, echoed Gilmore’s sentiments and said the hospital is positioning itself to better serve a growing area. “West Hills Hospital has been and continues to be an excellent hospital, highly rated by our patients,” said Kuban. “While other hospitals are limiting their services or closing down, we are expanding. This is a clear example of how the hospital is responding to the needs of our growing community.” Emergency needs Kuban, who is also the Emergency Department Medical Director, said that the new emergency department will reduce the amount of time the hospital is using all of its beds and is forced to send ambulances to other hospitals’ emergency departments. Kuban said that during his time at West Hills, eight hospital emergency rooms that serve the Valley have closed. “During this span, our daily emergency department census has doubled,” Kuban said. “The number of hours we have to be on paramedic diversion has been greatly increased.” Once the expansion is complete, he said, the hospital will be able to take more emergency care and offer more high-tech treatments, he said. Some union-member employees at the hospital chose the event to highlight what they say are alarming behaviors that affect patient care. During the ceremony, about one dozen hospital employees protested against what they described as an effort by West Hills Hospital management to under-staff its departments in order to improve profit margins. Estrella Chavez, a nurse who has worked at the hospital for 15 years, said employees are excited about the expansion but are worried about being able to care for patients. “HCA (the hospital’s owner) has basically just cut our staffing down to the bare bones, we just don’t have the ability to deliver the quality patient care that the people of this community deserve,” Chavez said. The protesting employees were not allowed into the tent that housed the groundbreaking for hospital board members and other guests. West Hills spokeswoman Jill Dolan explained that a separate ceremony, to which all hospital employees were invited, was to be held later that morning. At one point, one of the protestors was involved in a brief altercation with a person wearing a badge that identified him as a hospital vendor. Assemblyman Lloyd Levine said later in the day that he was “outraged” by the events, and criticized hospital management for being unnecessarily aggressive toward employees who were trying to address staffing concerns. Hospital statement After the event, the hospital released a statement saying that hospital management has “an obligation to provide for the safety of those attending and working at the event and took appropriate steps to do so.” SEIU United Healthcare Workers-West and SEIU 121RN are in negotiations with West Hills. Dana Simon, a negotiator working for both unions, said employees support the expansion project but are concerned that patients will not get the care they need without increased staffing. Marilyn Lang, vice president of ethics and compliance and risk manager for the hospital said that staffing at the hospital is in line with state requirements and adjusted according to the number and needs of the hospital’s patients.
