ACTIVISTS VOW TO FIGHT TO KEEP TCU NEWHALL MEMORIAL CONSIDERING SHUTTING DOWN TRANSITIONAL CARE UNIT.

Byline: EUGENE TONG Staff Writer

SANTA CLARITA -- Senior activists plan to take the fight to preserve Henry Mayo Newhall Memorial Hospital's transitional care unit to the board room.

Committee Against Closing the TCU organizers declared at a town hall meeting Thursday their intention to step up lobbying of the hospital's board of directors on behalf the 27-bed wing, which provides skilled nursing care to frail patients -- mostly seniors -- who have been discharged from the hospital but are not ready to go home.

``The consensus is we talk to the board of directors of Henry Mayo, that as part of planning for the future, that the TCU remains,'' said Brad Berens, a committee member and executive director of the Santa Clarita Committee on Aging. ``We keep that continuity of care and we search out for additional possibilities of skilled nursing care.''

Hospital officials have not decided whether to convert the TCU into acute-care beds, which officials said are needed to meet future patient demand and offers higher insurance reimbursement. A study being conducted on the issue was expected to be completed near the end of July.

``There is nothing conclusive at this point,'' said Andie Bogdan, a Newhall Memorial spokeswoman. ``We are still collecting information to understand the needs and the trends.''

Still, activists are alarmed at the prospect of the ward closing.

``This is our hospital,'' said Dr. Gene Dorio, a local physician and committee member. ``We don't want it to go bankrupt. We just want to do this for our seniors when they reach that point.''

In the meantime, the committee will devise alternatives, though Berens said it's difficult to build new nursing homes.

``This has to be a two-track approach,'' he said. ``There are a lot of hurdles to be able to get some additional skill nursing facilities out here, and it's going to take some time to do so.''

The barriers are mostly financial. Berens said few nursing home operators are willing to invest in new facilities in untested markets -- they merely take over existing buildings, and expand as needed. Santa Clarita Valley remains a relatively young community with only one 99-bed convalescent hospital.

``They almost are never built from the ground up anymore,'' Berens said. ``The TCU must remain open. The hospital needs to put it in their strategic planning ... and to find (another) way to build out additional beds.''

The meeting drew about 40, including Santa Clarita Mayor Laurene Weste, who offered ideas on possible sites for a nursing home, though the city has not taken action.

``The TCU is a critical component of being an elder-friendly community,'' Weste said Friday. ``It would be just a tremendous loss of our community. ... It will not fall through the cracks.''

But hospital officials said they must attend to needs beyond transitional care, which most other Southland medical centers have dropped. Newhall Memorial projects that by 2010, 8 percent of Santa Clarita Valley residents will be age 65 or older, compared with about 6.7 percent in 2005. That's also the age when hospitalization needs double.

Of the hospital's 217 beds, 131 are designated for acute care -- inpatient surgery, observation and intensive care. The hospital two years ago converted 29 beds of the then 56-bed TCU for acute care. Officials were required to build a corridor connecting the existing acute-care unit with the Nursing Pavilion.

TCU advocates pointed to the corridor, slated to be completed in April, as a sign hospital management already decided to convert the entire wing. Bogdan dismissed the speculation -- the construction was approved by the state in 2003, with plans submitted at least two years before.

``That is not the key to the decision,'' Bogdan said. ``This advocacy group wants an answer right now ... but we don't have the answer for them yet. It's human nature to fill in the blanks when you can.''

While Bogdan said the hospital is willing to help seek ways to attract nursing home operators to the valley, transitional care won't be their core business.

``Hospitals are good at certain things,'' she said. ``They are trauma care and acute care and caring for the very, very ill.''

Dorio said the ward is too valuable a resource to do away with.

``We're not just another community, and Henry Mayo is striving to be a regional provider,'' Dorio said. ``We want the transitional (care) unit to be part of that.''

Anita Fraser, who operates the Santa Clarita Homes for the Elderly, an assisted care home serving about 30 seniors ages 65 to 100, said losing the TCU would be ``devastating.''

``If you are recovering from an illness and you are released too soon, you have to go to a hospital again because you have a relapse,'' she said. ``You have to stay in the TCU.''

eugene.tong(at)dailynews.com

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