HOSPITAL, COUNTY TO OPEN CLINIC IN SOUTH VALLEY AREA.

Byline: Karen Maeshiro Daily News Staff Writer

Continuing a partnership to expand health care services in the south Antelope Valley, Los Angeles County and Antelope Valley Hospital officials plan to open a medical clinic in Lake Los Angeles.

The primary care clinic is scheduled to open early next year for eight hours each day on two days a week.

``We are real excited about that,'' said Mel Grussing, administrator at High Desert Hospital. ``That's something we wanted to do for a long time. There are no services at all. We feel that would be a good place to put a clinic.''

The hospital board has approved a five-year, $179,679 lease of 2,452 square feet of office space in the Saddleback Plaza, 16921 E. Ave. O. The hospital will sublease the Lake Los Angeles site to the county, just as it does with a clinic in Palmdale.

The opening date of the Lake Los Angeles clinic depends on when the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors approves the necessary funding, Grussing said.

To fill part of the gap after Palmdale's only hospital closed in March 1996, the Palmdale clinic opened in January and now serves more than 850 people a month. It operates from noon to 8 p.m. Monday through Friday, and it soon may be open for more hours.

If county supervisors approve the funding, Grussing said, the Palmdale clinic will be open 12 hours a day Monday through Friday, eight hours Saturday and eight hours Sunday.

Shirley Sayles, an Antelope Valley Hospital director, said that, while the Lake Los Angeles clinic initially will be open only two days a week, the schedule could change later.

``It will start out at two days a week, and we'll see what the volume is. If it's anything like the Palmdale clinic, it will be overflowed the first day it opens,'' Sayles said.

Sayles said hospital officials also are looking for space to set up a clinic in the Pearblossom/Littlerock area.