Laguna Beach Turns to Sacramento in the Fight to Keep an Emergency Room
With Providence stepping back from full-service care, the city task force wants state law changed so a standalone emergency department could survive on the Laguna campus.
The fate of Laguna Beach's only emergency room now runs through Sacramento. The city's Hospital Task Force says it will ask a local legislator to sponsor state legislation allowing standalone emergency departments, a model that current California law effectively prohibits.
Councilmember Bob Whalen described the regulatory wall the city faces: California ties emergency rooms to acute-care hospitals, which means a facility cannot operate an ER on its own without the inpatient beds and services that come with it. A previous statewide attempt to change the law was vetoed, but task force officials say they will try again if the data and the political climate support it.
Councilmember Alex Rounaghi, who with Whalen serves as the council's representative on the Hospital Ad Hoc Committee, said the city will not chase legislation blindly. The task force wants clinical analysis first, then regulatory and financial work, to be sure a standalone ER would actually meet the community's medical needs before asking lawmakers to act.
The push comes after Providence, which operates Mission Hospital's Laguna Beach campus, told the task force at its Aug. 20 meeting that it will not continue operating a full-service acute-care hospital there. "We've made the decision that we're no longer gonna run a full service acute care hospital," Seth Hagen, chief executive of Providence Mission Hospital in Mission Viejo and Laguna Beach, told the task force.
Providence representatives and city officials met Aug. 24, and their joint statement, dated Sept. 2 and published Sept. 3, commits the health system to studying a smaller hospital that would include an emergency department and a minimal number of acute-care beds. The city has told Providence that the campus's most critical feature is 24-hour emergency care capable of accepting patients arriving by ambulance.
The city's Hospital Task Force was formed this spring after the March council direction to follow a Hospital Action Plan. Its stated work is to examine at least two plans: one that retains an emergency department in Laguna Beach, whether operated by Providence or someone else, and the plan Providence has put forward, which includes either an Advanced Care Center or, should state law change, a medical center with a standalone emergency department.
Providence has said it would support placing a standalone emergency department on a new Laguna Beach campus if state law allowed it. Task force officials say they are also coordinating studies and outreach with the California attorney general's office as the options develop.
What comes next is a sequence of analysis, legislation and negotiation. The task force continues its meetings and stakeholder outreach, while the council's ad hoc members press Providence for details on what a smaller hospital would actually include. For residents, the question is unchanged from the spring: when an emergency happens in Laguna Beach, where does the ambulance go?
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