Hospital Rebuts Doctors’ Charges

After a six-hour meeting Friday, top physicians and members of the Board of Governors at Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center agreed to a joint statement that calls some of the physicians’ highly publicized complaints about poor patient care “inaccurate and exaggerated.”

At the same time, the executive committee of the hospital’s medical staff declined to retract last week’s extraordinary vote of “no confidence” in the leadership of the financially troubled institution. And the Board of Governors neither endorsed nor criticized the hospital’s administration.

Board members and doctors scuttled initial plans to answer questions from reporters. Instead, a member of the hospital administration, Vice President Sari Weiner, read a prepared statement and answered questions on their behalf. Weiner had not been present at the hospital officials’ meeting.

The “actual” concerns of the medical staff were financial and management problems and “never included quality of care,” according to the statement, which called some of the reports about quality deficiencies “inaccurate and exaggerated.” The statement said the board and top physicians “are confident that our hospital will remain a viable and quality institution.”

According to Weiner, a joint task force of doctors and board members is being formed to address the financial and administrative issues. The task force is to report its findings within 30 to 45 days.

Reaction to Constraints

The doctors’ vote of no confidence, which Weiner said has not been retracted, was “a reaction on the part of the medical staff to growing financial constraints imposed by limited funding and the rising costs of health care.”

Earlier this week, Dr. Samy Farag, a rheumatologist who is chief of the hospital’s medical staff, issued a statement to The Times explaining the nearly unanimous “no confidence” vote taken Aug. 25.

Farag said “many members of the medical staff are concerned about the quality of care their patients receive and have expressed dissatisfaction about deterioration in services. In spite of numerous attempts to being these deficiencies to the attention of hospital administration, there has been no improvement.”

Other Hollywood Presbyterian physicians told The Times of shortages of such basic supplies as operating tables and suturing kits, as well as long delays in maintaining and upgrading key equipment due to financial restrictions imposed by creditors.

Since the no-confidence vote was publicized, hospital officials said they have been deluged by calls from prospective patients wondering if, for example, equipment for upcoming procedures was in working order.

The wards were quiet Friday, as only 209 of the nonprofit hospital’s 395 licensed beds were occupied. The surgical intensive-care unit was closed for lack of patients “for the first time ever,” nurses said, and some patients were canceling their elective surgeries. But hospital officials were quick to point out that the number of admissions typically slackens off before a holiday weekend.

Hollywood Presbyterian officials acknowledge that low occupancy rates and interest payments on loans for a $56-million new building that opened in 1986 have exacerbated financial problems caused by what they said is inadequate reimbursement for the costs of patient care. Financial disclosure reports show that the hospital lost nearly $7.9 million during a two-year period that ended in June, 1987, and considerable additional losses are expected to have been incurred through the first half of 1988.

Weiner acknowledged that “serious financial problems may sometimes impact quality of care.” She added: “To date we have been able to satisfy all creditors. Although money is tight we are still viable.”