New California Law Weakened Hospital Seismic Safety at Hundreds of Facilities Prior to Recent Earthquake—Governor and Hospital Industry Endangered Patients and Public Safety

Chino Valley Medical Center Among Most Dangerous

Hundreds of California hospitals were excused from seismic upgrades under a bill, SB 306, signed last year by Arnold Schwarzenegger, and pushed by the California Hospital Association, the industry’s lobbying arm.  The result endangers not just patients but the entire public safety infrastructure in the event of an earthquake stronger than the one that struck Los Angeles yesterday, the California Nurses Association reports.

SB 306 opens the door for exemptions for seismic safety for more than 300 buildings at 77 hospitals just in Los Angeles County. Hospitals would have until 2020 to repair seismically unsafe buildings – despite the history of the collapse of medical facilities during major earthquakes.

Chino Valley Medical Center, near the heart of the quake, is rated by the state as an “SPC 1” building, meaning it is expected to collapse in a major seismic event.  Chino was already granted an extension to 2013 from the 2008 deadline set up by a law passed after the 1994 Northridge quake destroyed a local hospital.  2006 data from OSHPD (Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development) suggests that Chino Valley was out of compliance for seismic safety, meaning it, “pose(s) a significant risk of collapse and a danger to the public after a strong earthquake.”    The facility’s preliminary request for an extension was denied, but in a report dated December 2007 the extension was approved.  SB 306 makes it possible for hospitals like Chino Valley to get yet another extension to 2020 if they can prove financial hardship or that they are an “essential” hospital.

“I hope this serves as a wake-up call to Governor Schwarzenegger and the California Hospital Association,” said Donna Gerber, director of legislative affairs for the California Nurses Association.  “Hospitals are the one place we need standing after an earthquake, and it is reckless to loosen their safety standards.  Will we be so lucky next time?”  If hospitals had been forced to comply with the original deadline of 2008, all California communities would have stood a much better chance of having access to their hospitals for emergency services if yesterday’s earthquake had been stronger. 

A seismic safety law was initially passed after a major earthquake in 1971, and then updated in 1994 following the Northridge earthquake in which 23 hospitals were forced to suspend some or all of their services.

The law required these buildings to be retrofitted, replaced, or removed from acute-care service by January 1, 2008. Hospitals subsequently won an extension of the deadline to 2013, then to 2015, and last year with SB 306 to 2020. 

In 2001, state officials found that 40 percent of the state's 479 hospitals were in danger of collapsing in a major earthquake and 75 percent did not have adequate bracing to keep their mechanical and other systems operating.   The state is running many hospital buildings through the latest computer modeling this year to reduce the approximate 1,100 worst-case scenario buildings to a smaller number.  The hospitals have funded this new technology.