Community

Unless Last-ditch Efforts Succeed, Doctors Hospital to Begin Closing in April

Published

10 years ago

April 3, 2015

By Post Staff

Despite pleas from the public and staff at Doctor’s Medical Center in San Pablo, the doors to the hospital that houses West Contra Costa County’s only emergency room are scheduled to begin closing on April 21.

The West Contra Costa Healthcare District board voted March 26 to shutter the hospital but will wait until April 21 to give those interested in saving the hospital time to review a last-ditch proposal by a group that specializes in saving hospitals.

Residents and interested others packed the boardroom and expressed frustration and outrage that the board would close the hospital.

“It’s a shame,” said a man who didn’t want to be identified. “This hospital is very important to this community.”

The hospital averages 100 to 115 people in the emergency room a day. It stopped taking ambulance traffic in September 2014, and emergency room traffic dropped to about 50 a day – but those numbers have increased and people began coming back, according to records.

Doctor’s Medical Center has the region’s only cardiac unit, cancer center, diabetes-wound care, and sleep lab program. With the hospital closure those departments will be gone.

Some at the board meeting voiced frustration, saying that if the hospital could remain open until January, it might be saved by an influx of cash from Chevron’s Richmond refinery.

The refinery has pledged about $15 million to the hospital – about $5 million for three years – as it revamps the refinery, but payments the payments do not begin until the work begins in January.

And, it is likely that when the hospital goes, the doctors’ offices that surround the hospital will go, too. And with the closure, about 700 employees, some of the highest paid jobs in area, will lose their jobs.

The hospital’s financial problems, which officials blame mostly on low reimbursement rates for Medi-Cal and Medicare patients, began in the 1990s. Those patients account for about 80 percent of the hospital’s total patients.

Another 20 percent are uninsured and commercial patients.

Doctor’s originally opened as Brookside Hospital in 1954.

When the hospital contracted with Tenet Health Systems in 1997, the agreement lasted just seven years before Tenet pulled out in 2004. Voters approved a $52-a-year parcel tax in 2004 and raised $5.6 million a year, but it wasn’t enough to stop the operating losses.

Then in 2006, the district filed for bankruptcy protection. When the hospital emerged from bankruptcy, its managers tried other ways to save the hospital to no avail.

The state and even other health care companies provided cash and received funds from the advance payments of the parcel tax. Even a second parcel tax in 2011, which raised about $5.1 million a year, didn’t help.

The hospital still fell into an $18 million-a-year deficit.

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Oakland Post: Week of July 2- 8, 2025

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of July 2 – 8, 2025

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4 days ago

July 7, 2025

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Trump Set to Sign Largest Cut to Medicaid After a Marathon Protest Speech by Leader Jeffries

BLACKPRESSUSA NEWSWIRE — The bill also represents the biggest cut in Medicare in history and is a threat to the health care coverage of over 15 million people. The spending in Trump’s signature legislation also opens the door to a second era of over-incarceration in the U.S.

Published

1 week ago

July 3, 2025

Oakland Post

By Lauren Burke

By a vote of 218 to 214, the GOP-controlled U.S. House passed President Trump’s massive budget and spending bill that will add $3.5 trillion to the national debt, according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). The bill also represents the biggest cut in Medicare in history and is a threat to the health care coverage of over 15 million people. The spending in Trump’s signature legislation also opens the door to a second era of over-incarceration in the U.S. With $175 billion allocated in spending for immigration enforcement, the money for more police officers eclipsed the 2026 budget for the U.S. Marines, which is $57 billion. Almost all of the policy focus from the Trump Administration has focused on deporting immigrants of color from Mexico and Haiti.

The vote occurred as members were pressed to complete their work before the arbitrary deadline of the July 4 holiday set by President Trump. It also occurred after Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries took the House floor for over 8 hours in protest. Leader Jeffries broke the record in the U.S. House for the longest floor speech in history on the House floor. The Senate passed the bill days before and was tied at 50-50, with Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski saying that, “my hope is that the House is gonna look at this and recognize that we’re not there yet.” There were no changes made to the Senate bill by the House. A series of overnight phone calls to Republicans voting against, not changes, was what won over enough Republicans to pass the legislation, even though it adds trillions to the debt. The Trump spending bill also cuts money to Pell grants.

“The Big Ugly Bill steals food out of the hands of starving children, steals medicine from the cabinets of cancer patients, and equips ICE with more funding and more weapons of war than the United States Marine Corps. Is there any question of who those agents will be going to war for, or who they will be going to war against? Beyond these sadistic provisions, Republicans just voted nearly unanimously to close urban and rural hospitals, cripple the child tax credit, and to top it all off, add $3.3 trillion to the ticking time bomb that is the federal deficit – all from a party that embarrassingly pretends to stand for fiscal responsibility and lowering costs,” wrote Congressional Black Caucus Chairwoman Yvette Clarke (D-NY) in a statement on July 3.

“The Congressional Budget Office predicts that 17 million people will lose their health insurance, including over 322,000 Virginians. It will make college less affordable. Three million people will lose access to food assistance through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). And up to 16 million students could lose access to free school meals. The Republican bill does all of this to fund tax breaks for millionaires, billionaires, and corporations,” wrote Education and Workforce Committee ranking member Rep. Bobby Scott (D-VA) in a statement. The bill’s passage has prompted Democrats to start thinking about 2026 and the next election cycle. With the margins of victory in the U.S. House and U.S. Senate being so narrow, many are convinced that the balance of power and the question of millions being able to enjoy health care come down to only several thousand votes in congressional elections. But currently, Republicans controlled by the MAGA movement control all three branches of government. That reality was never made more stark and more clear than the last seven days of activity in the U.S. House and U.S. Senate.