Hospital to open again

By Chris Ledermuller
Daily Forty-Niner

The Long Beach City Council has selected Save our Neighborhood Hospital to reopen and operate Community Medical Center, shut down Sept. 29 by former owner Catholic Healthcare West.

Save our Neighborhood Hospital, a coalition of Community Medical Center doctors and staff, competed with other nonprofit and for-profit firms vying to operate the facility at 1720 Termino Ave. in mid-November, according to news reports.

After Catholic Healthcare West announced the closure of Community Medical Center, residents of east Long Beach were upset and worried about where they would get their medical care.

"The east side of the city needs to have some kind of medical center," said Long Beach city councilman Frank Colonna.

According to Beth Keely, a professor of nursing at Cal State Long Beach, nursing students also honed their skills at Community Medical Center.

"We used the facility for one of our clinical laboratories," Keely said. "Students provided nursing care under the supervision of faculty and registered nurses. We had as many as 24 in two different clinical groups."

Keely said she has been keeping a close eye on news developments regarding Community Medical Center's status, but she is unsure if CSULB's nursing program may return to the hospital once it reopens.

"We may or may not use it," Keely said. "We would go over there and evaluate whether it would provide the appropriate learning experience our students need."

Keely said arrangements have already been made with St. Mary Medical Center and Harbor-UCLA Medical Center.

Community Medical Center was the closest hospital near the CSULB campus and residents of east Long Beach.

With Community Medical Center closed, the nearest operating hospitals are Los Alamitos Medical Center and Lakewood Regional Medical Center, both outside the city limits. Long Beach Memorial Medical Center and St. Mary Medical Center are within Long Beach, but both are on the west side.

"You're adding 12 minutes of additional transportation time to get across the city," Colonna said.