County officials are learning it's one thing to build a new County-USC Medical Center -- it's quite another to pay for the bedpans and other furnishings.
The start-up costs for the hospital, whose construction expenses alone are expected to top $800 million, may add as much as $240.5 million to the price tag. The problem is, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors has yet to put aside any money to cover the extra costs.
The medical records system will cost up to $100 million, said David E. Janssen, the county's chief administrative officer. Furnishings, including portable medical equipment, could cost $105.2 million -- twice the price that county officials estimated in 1998. Moving from the old hospital could chew up an additional $35 million.
An interest-bearing fund to cover the start-up costs was created by supervisors in 1998 but is still sitting empty, according to Sheila Shima, the health budget manager for the county chief administrative office.
"We were aware of these costs when the board talked about the project initially" in the 1990s, Shima said. "That's why we said, 'Let's not be blindsided and put aside some money.' "
The new hospital is slated to open in 2007 in East Los Angeles, next to the old one, which was finished in 1933 and is considered outdated and lacking many modern amenities.
In an Aug. 12 letter to the board, Janssen identified three potential sources of funding. Two of them would involve borrowing money and using tobacco settlement funds not committed to other programs.
Health-care advocates have angrily objected to a third proposal by Janssen and the county Department of Health Services to use a recently discovered surplus -- about $100 million from last year's health budget -- for the start-up costs.
Advocates want the money spent on health-care programs, not equipment and furnishings that won't be used for at least four years. "I do understand that they are going to have to purchase new equipment, but what about the half-million people who can't get care in the meantime -- who may not even live to see the new hospital?" asked Barbara Frankel, an attorney with Neighborhood Legal Services of Los Angeles.
"You can't give those people a rain check. Banking the money just doesn't make sense in this climate," Frankel added.
Worried about looming deficits, the Board of Supervisors earlier this year voted to cut 400 health-care jobs and close 16 county clinics. The supervisors also voted to shut down Rancho Los Amigos National Rehabilitation Center in Downey and remove 100 beds from County-USC.
