LAGUNA BEACH — Those who run the Laguna Beach Community Clinic said Wednesday they are stunned and dismayed that their board of directors has voted without consulting with them or the community on a proposal to merge with South County Community Clinic in San Juan Capistrano.
Diana Lithgow, a family nurse practitioner who coordinates the Laguna Beach clinic's medical services, said the board of directors informed the staff by a faxed message on Dec. 20 that the merger was in the offing and that they would receive more information next Wednesday, when board members return from holiday vacations.
The staff members "stood with their mouths open and some were crying," Lithgow said. The next day they shot back a letter of objection to the board.
The letter acknowledged the need for the Laguna Beach clinic to affiliate with other health providers to meet the new full-service requirements of OPTIMA, the county's emerging managed-care program for Medi-Cal recipients.
But the letter, which Lithgow said was signed by 24 staff members, said the staff had anticipated that the Laguna Beach clinic would merge with UCI Medical Center in Orange, with which it already has "a strong and healthy referral relationship," rather than with another nonprofit community clinic.
Art Birtcher, a developer who chairs the South County Community Clinic and serves on the OPTIMA board of directors, said any affiliation between the two clinics is still tentative and would hinge upon a feasibility study. "The only advantage is if we could bring stronger management and financial sources," he said, noting that the San Juan Capistrano clinic is "one of the more financially stable clinics in Orange County." He called the proposal an affiliation rather than a merger or takeover.
Joan Cobin, the Laguna Beach clinic's executive director, said an underlying concern of the staff involves the San Juan Capistrano clinic's close working relationship with Mission Hospital Regional Medical Center in Mission Viejo. Mission Hospital recently merged with St. Joseph Health System, which is owned and operated by Catholic nuns, the Sisters of St. Joseph of Orange.
Cobin said her staff fears that the Catholic Church's philosophical opposition to birth control could adversely impact the Laguna Beach clinic's family planning service.
If Laguna Beach Community Clinic affiliated with UCI, while the San Juan Capistrano clinic was linked with St. Joseph Health System, Cobin argues, the poor of south Orange County would have a choice of hospitals and philosophies.
