Seismic safety mandates and hospital deadlines must stay in place

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Briefly

Delays and waivers requested by hospital lobbyists undermine legislation designed to modernize buildings and ensure that communities receive care after an earthquake.

By Cathy Kennedy, for CalMatters

Kathy Kennedy, Registered Nurse and President of the California Nurses Association, [email protected].

The horrific collapse of the Champlain Tower in South Florida last month that killed at least 95 people is a reminder of how fragile the seemingly surprisingly robust structure can be.

In California, we’ve also seen large buildings fall with fatal consequences, often as the ground begins to shake. When the edifice is a hospital, it is a double disaster, affecting not only patients, visitors, and families buried by the earthquake, but everyone in the community losing access to the now incapacitated hospital.

The 1971 earthquake in northern Los Angeles County killed 64 people, 49 of whom were at the Veterans Administration Hospital in Sylmar. Two decades later, the 1994 Northridge earthquake forced the indefinite closure of three Los Angeles hospitals due to structural damage. Dozens of others were severely beaten, forcing them to evacuate the sick.

In the aftermath of the Northridge earthquake, California lawmakers decided the threat to public safety was too great, and finally passed the 1953 Senate bill, legislation that mandates two new standards, with deadlines: hospital buildings supporting the risk of collapse in the aftermath of the earthquake and fully functional to provide care after the earthquake.

However, seismic safety has never been a higher priority for hospitals than their profit goals. Hospital lobbying arm – the California Hospital Association – has successfully lobbied lawmakers to move target jobs on compliance deadlines. With its massive economic impact on the Capitol, CHA won several delays, and is now trying to push for another one. You want to change the 2030 deadline for post-earthquake care delivery to 2037 and exempt “buildings providing emergency services only” – as if patients, hospital workers and other public don’t count when they are crushed by buildings that provide non-emergency services.

This indifference was evident in the CHA tweet after the July 8 tremor. She boasted that “today’s earthquakes show that hospitals always stand up, always safe, always ready, always ready for patients” – ignoring the memories of Selmar and Northridge.

To make matters worse, the tweet said it was “time to update the seismic parameters” — a euphemism for demanding another postponement, a bit of arrogance that the Los Angeles Times called “more time to get less work done.”

The excuse for the recent delay? As always – a deceptive claim about the financial woes of a California hospital industry that has posted profits of over $102 billion in the past 20 years, including $79.9 billion in the past decade and $47.2 billion in the past five years. The argument this time? Cost of covid-19 patients.

Two large hospital chains tell a different story. In 2020, Kaiser Permanente reported income of $6.35 billion. HCA Healthcare reported earnings of $3.8 billion in 2020. In addition, California hospitals overall received more than $5 billion in combined federal health care assistance in direct assistance, as well as more than $8 billion in pandemic-related loans.

While the CHA’s first gambit to pressure the delay it seeks in the recently passed state budget has failed, it continues to push the governor and lawmakers to find another way, most likely by amending or replacing other legislation.

The California Nurses Association, the California Building and Construction Trade Council, the California Professional Firefighters, the California Labor Federation and others representing health care workers, emergency responders, patients, safety engineers and retirees oppose any rollback, extended schedule, or any weakening Another for earthquake standards, and we encourage others to urge state legislators and Governor Gavin Newsom to do the same.

From a sylmar to a high-rise apartment in Florida, we need to conserve the human toll of a building collapse front and center. The shared hospital industry does not need another compromise on seismic safety that will leave Californians unprotected.

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