HOSPITAL SUED OVER DOC FIRING EX-E.R. CHIEF CLAIMS LCH REJECTED PATIENTS.

Byline: Karen Maeshiro Staff Writer

LANCASTER - Amid charges by Antelope Valley Hospital that a private firm's proposed Palmdale hospital will ignore poor patients, the company has been accused in a lawsuit of illegally rejecting or transferring patients from its Lancaster emergency room.

A former Lancaster Community Hospital emergency room medical director says in a lawsuit against the hospital and its parent company that his contract was terminated in April 2004 after 19 years of service in retaliation for his complaints that the hospital was ``unlawfully understaffed.''

``LCH did not have an acceptable ratio of registered nurses to patients and failed to comply with (a federal) mandate for specialist physicians on-call to back up the emergency room,'' said the lawsuit, filed May 31.

``LCH requested that patients be illegally rejected/transferred under the false assertion that 'no beds were available' when beds were in fact available,'' the lawsuit added.

The lawsuit, filed by Dr. John Zambetti, said Zambetti was asked to make ``misrepresentations about the illegal conditions'' to ambulance companies, other hospitals and referring physicians. Zambetti refused to do that, the lawsuit said.

As they have fended off accusations by Antelope Valley Hospital, LCH officials denied the allegations contained in the lawsuit.

``After having the contract for 19 years, we wouldn't change it for no reason,'' said Bob Trautman, chief executive officer at LCH. ``We are confident we can defend this. It's similar to a disgruntled employee leaving.''

Trautman added that nurse staffing ratios were not mandated at LCH at the time of Zambetti's complaint, and with the exception of one subspecialty, the hospital always had the required emergency room backup panels in place.

Trautman denied Zambetti's charge about the hospital falsely asserting that no hospital beds were available.

``The only thing I can think of is it was related to Medi-Cal. We are required by law to contact a Medi-Cal contract hospital, which in this case would be Antelope Valley Hospital, to ask for bed availability before we admit to our own hospital,'' Trautman said.

LCH does not have a Medi-Cal contract.

In the latest round of an escalating war of words, Antelope Valley Hospital officials last week called the city of Palmdale's pending transfer of property to LCH owner Universal Health Services to build a competing hospital in Palmdale an ``unwarranted'' gift of public funds.

Universal and Palmdale broke ground June 2 for an $82 million, full-service hospital. A day before the groundbreaking, AVH officials offered to buy the 30-acre site for $9.3 million.

Palmdale officials rejected the offer, saying they had no confidence in the hospital district's ability to develop the site, citing ``past incompetence.''

AVH officials have said they fear that a new private hospital will draw off patients with insurance, leaving Antelope Valley Hospital caring for a higher percentage of patients unable to pay for their treatment.

``We cannot let an East Coast-based, for-profit international conglomerate like UHS build and run another hospital that serves only our wealthier residents just to further their bottom- line profits,'' Antelope Valley Hospital CEO Les Wong said in a statement.

In 2001, LCH paid a $9,000 fine and provided additional training for emergency room staff after being cited for violating a federal law that prohibits ``patient dumping.''

The hospital was among 77 hospitals in California and 527 nationwide that were found in violation of a law that prohibits hospitals from denying medical screening or stabilizing treatment or from improperly transferring a patient whose emergency condition is not stable.

The federal law also requires hospitals to provide emergency care to patients, regardless of their ability to pay.

LCH officials at the time denied that the hospital ever dumped patients or did anything wrong. Health inspectors said LCH failed to provide medical screening exams to two patients, records show.

The hospital responded in its correction plan that a medical screening was performed but ``was not always documented within the medical record,'' records show.

Zambetti's lawsuit was filed on behalf of the physician and of Malibu-based The Emergency Group, of which Zambetti is president, CEO and sole shareholder.

Karen Maeshiro, [phone]

karen.maeshiro(at)dailynews.com