OFFICIALS MONITOR EFFECTS OF CLOSING PALMDALE HOSPITAL\County may provide assistance.

Byline: Charles F. Bostwick Daily News Staff Writer

As Desert Palms Community Hospital shut its doors for the last time Friday, Los Angeles County officials began investigating what the impact will be on other Antelope Valley hospitals.

The county Department of Health Services is also investigating the feasibility of the county cooperating with Desert Palms to provide basic emergency room operations, obstetrics care and services for low-income residents enrolled in the county's health-maintenance organization for Medi-Cal patients, officials said.

"The closing of this facility will be detrimental to patient care, but (will increase) patient volume at the Antelope Valley's two remaining emergency departments," board Chairman Mike Antonovich said.

After years of financial troubles and months of rumors, Desert Palms Community Hospital officials last week announced that the 31-year-old, 235-employee facility would close Friday. The emergency room, which normally serves up to 40 patients a day, was closed to paramedic cases Tuesday.

Palmdale Mayor Jim Ledford and City Councilman Joe Davies said Friday the city will try to find a replacement.

One way to do that would be to revive the city's requests for proposals from health-care firms interested in building a new hospital downtown.

The city's most recent solicitation drew one single response from Paracelsus health-care corporation, which owns Desert Palms, but more companies may be interested now that there won't be a competitor in the city, Ledford said.

While the other Antelope Valley hospitals expect the closure to affect them, officials said Friday they haven't felt the impact yet.

"It's not really any different so far. Obviously, that can't hold true forever," said Gary Cothran, spokesman for 350-bed Antelope Valley Hospital, the valley's largest.

Patient numbers over the last three or four days have been about the same in both Antelope Valley Hospital's emergency room and its Antelope Valley Care Clinic, which treats patients with colds and other minor ailments.

The hospital normally takes in 120 to 150 people a day in the emergency room, and an additional 35 to 60 a day at the clinic, he said. On Thursday, 115 people were treated in the emergency room, and 43 people got assistance in the care clinic, Cothran said.

To deal with the expected influx, the hospital has placed five staffers - mostly nurses - on call in case the emergency room gets busy, he said. The hospital is also revising procedures to make better use of emergency room space by transferring patients into hospital beds more quickly.

At Lancaster Community Hospital - which like Desert Palms is owned by Paracelsus health-care corporation - officials said they had seen no significant influx of patients, but Chief Executive Officer Steve Schmidt declined further comment.

A Los Angeles County Fire Department official said he had not heard of any patients harmed by the longer travel to Lancaster since Desert Palms stopped accepting ambulances at noon Tuesday.

But Battalion Chief Jack Ricci said Palmdale paramedics may not be able to respond to as many calls because of the greater distance they must drive to accompany patients to Lancaster hospitals. That requires bringing in paramedics from Lancaster and Littlerock if the Palmdale unit is not available.

"We're noting the squad's down-time is longer because they're having to drive farther with the patients," Ricci said.

A Wilson Ambulance official said the company is keeping an eye on the extra travel time for Palmdale patients.

"There hasn't been a major problem so far," said Doug Cain, director of operations. "We're monitoring it very closely."