Hospital Leaders Step Up Their Visibility
To foster communication in the coastal communities that it now serves, Mission Hospital Laguna Beach has established a community advisory council and started holding talks with neighbors, some of whom have sued the hospital over long-standing, unresolved irritations.
The neighborhood forum met for the first time this past week, while the council held its inaugural luncheon last month. The council’s co-chairs, Laguna Beach residents Tim Carlyle, Dan Kelly and Melinda Masson, met alongside Mission Hospital’s president and chief executive Peter F. Bastone and Michael Beck, vice president of operations at the Laguna Beach campus.
“I have no doubt that this council will only strengthen the relationship we have with the community, giving it a voice in the future of Mission Hospital Laguna Beach,” said Bastone, of St. Joseph Health Systems, which acquired South Coast Medical Center on July 1, about a year after the hospital went on the block for the second time in four years.
The hospital remains one of the town’s largest employers, despite a 25 percent reduction in its staffing. The make-up of the council, too, remains a topic of keen interest among supporters of the previous hospital’s defunct foundation, which helped establish the facility and fueled its expansion.
Mission administrators are stepping up their profile, having recently made a presentation to local realtors and plan another speaking engagement with Rotary Club members soon. Even so, earlier this month residents filed a lawsuit against Mission Hospital, seeking $15 million in nuisance and injunctive relief, hoping the new owners will be more responsive. Mission’s lawyers have yet to respond formally.
In addition, Beck this past week hosted a neighborhood forum and plans others monthly. The next is set for Dec. 15.
About 20 residents turned out for the hour-long session. Beck took the opportunity to explain Mission’s culture, its immediate priorities and some unanticipated infrastructure problems encountered during its first four months of ownership.
In turn, residents quizzed Beck on issues such as noise, vegetation and meeting state-mandated seismic requirements. His answers seemed to dispel suspicions about Mission’s long-term goals.
“What is the prospect of retrofitting?” asked Steve Dimestico, who lives nearby and one of the plaintiffs in the suit.
“There is no exit strategy,” said Beck, explaining how the existing five-story patient tower’s use would likely shift, bending to industry trends. What were hospitalbased services are becoming outpatient services that can be offered in facilities exempt from the earthquake requirements, he said.
Even if the rules requiring seismic soundness at hospitals are not revised as expected, Beck said MHLB could still provide 45 hospital beds in a building that currently meets the requirements.
Ginger Osborne questioned the reason behind rent hikes at campus medical offices, leading to an exodus among physicians of longstanding.
The previous owners had not escalated rents to market rates, a practice the federal Justice Department discourages to avoid possible conflicts of interest over referrals, Beck said. “It created a significant legal issue,” he said.
The hospital’s advisory council is comprised of 24 people, said Beck. They include practicing physicians, business and civic leaders, past board members of South Coast Medical Center, and other community leaders, said a hospital statement. Their meetings are not open to the public, he said, but will guide administrators when making decisions on potential medical services, community benefits and serving the poor.
Asked about the identity of the full council, hospital spokeswoman Kelsey Martinez said members have not yet given consent to release their names. A source who asked not to be identified provided the Indy with the names.
In its current makeup, the council includes a single working physician, David Ashkenaze; four Mission staff members; James Berminghem, Montage resort’s general manager; former mayor and hospital trustee Kathleen Blackburn; surf shop co-owner Mark Christy; real estate broker Michael Gosselin; former council member Cheryl Kinsman; Arts Commissioner Pat Kollenda; Helping Hands founder Sita Helms; and senior center director Bea Fields, among others. Noticeably absent from the list is Elizabeth Pearson, a current council member and former executive director of the dissolved South Coast Medical Center Foundation, who pounded the pavement over two years to recruit a powerful board of supporters.
Carlyle, a 34-year local, is a lawyer in an Irvine law that specializes in commercial litigation. He serves on boards of a money manager, a bank and a museum and was a former school board member.
Kelly is a spokesman for the managers and planners of Rancho Mission Viejo and Ladera Ranch. He serves on Mission Hospital’s board.
As does his colleague on the council, Masson, founder and chief executive of Aliso Viejo-based Merit, which plans and manages gated communities and rental property in 18 states.
