Hospitals, Newsom seek to delay earthquake upgrades

One hour after a 6.0-magnitude earthquake struck Northern California on Thursday, California Assen Hospital reported. He tweeted that it was time to update the seismic standards – to focus on all the services people need after a disaster of any kind.

But the association’s tweet deleted that its proposal circulating in the state Capitol would weaken existing standards, giving hospitals another seven years — until 2037 — to ensure their buildings remain operational after Big One and to restrict upgrades to buildings that support emergency services. .

The tweet also did not mention that Governor Gavin Newsom’s office, in negotiations for the state Capitol, had supported the association’s request for more time to do less work, according to multiple sources involved in the discussions in Sacramento who were not authorized to speak with them. Newsom’s office declined to comment.

Debates about hospital building standards are not new in California. This time, it has led to a stalemate between some of the most powerful forces in state politics: labor unions and hospitals.

Efforts to delay legally required seismic upgrades at California hospitals are one of the few issues left before Newsom and the legislature reach a long-delayed final agreement on the state’s budget for the fiscal year that began July 1.

Hospitals represented by the association argue that current seismic standards are expensive and unnecessary in some ways and that their industry needs more time to recover from the massive financial losses during the pandemic.

In a letter to legislative leaders late last month, the association claimed that even with federal assistance, California hospitals lost $8 billion in 2020 caring for COVID-19 patients and expects to lose another $2.2 billion this year.

Current law requires that by 2030, every hospital building will be able to function in the aftermath of an earthquake.

Without action on their proposal, the association says, the current standard would “sleep billions of dollars off hospitals and, if not amended, potentially lead to hospital closures across the state.”

The association said its proposal could significantly cut the $100 billion it would cost to complete California’s seismic upgrades.

“This is an important procedure for hospitals,” said David Simon, a spokesman for the California Hospital in Assen. “We have learned a lot from the pandemic, resilience is important, and focusing limited resources on emergencies is important.”

Simon said Newsom is not aligned with the Hospital Association but with sound policy.

“I think the governor is drawing on the lessons of the pandemic to craft good policy moving forward,” Simon said. “This is not a security question. It is about services that are required and important during a disaster. What the governor does is recognize the need for sharp modern policy, versus running every building after a disaster.”

Democratic legislative leaders have made clear that any deal to change seismic standards will need the support of labor unions. A large labor group that includes the California Labor Union, California Nurses, SEIU California, the state Building and Construction Trade Board and others remain opposed to the hospitals proposal.

Steve Smith, a spokesman for the California Labor Federation, said delaying law enforcement only increases the likelihood of a major earthquake before the upgrades are complete.

“We know a big earthquake is coming,” Smith said. We know it’s likely to happen sooner rather than later. It is inconceivable that hospitals are not trying to meet the deadline set decades ago.”

Smith said that labor groups opposed to the changes “are working to engage the legislature and the governor’s office on why it’s a horrific idea.” Any time the governor passes, he said, he brings new urgency to the proposal.

“We clearly have concerns about the proposal,” Smith said. California Hospital Assn. We’ve been pushing this for a long time, and we’re making a particularly strong push at the moment.”

Sources involved in the negotiations said the Hospital Consortium and the Governor’s Office had attempted to pair the delay in seismic upgrades with a labor push to create the Office of Health Care Affordability, which was included in Newsom’s original budget proposal and would set health care targets. costs.

Union advocates say rising health care costs remain a problem for workers. The Office of Health Care Affordability will be housed within the statewide Office of Health Planning and Development and staffed by state union workers.

But union groups refused to support the Hospital Federation’s call to change building standards, even if it meant suspending the Office of Health Care Affordability.

On Thursday, the California Building Trade Board reiterated its opposition to “delaying necessary seismic retrofits.”

The group wrote via a Twitter photo showing the collapse of Olive View Medical Center in the 1971 Sylmar earthquake, which prompted a state law on seismic standards for new hospital buildings.

A spokesman for the hospital union described the tweet as “disappointing” and said it was unfair.

More than 95% of hospital buildings in the state meet seismic standards under a 1994 law that aims to ensure none of them collapse during a major earthquake. This law was passed after the Northridge earthquake that year, which caused extensive damage to hospitals. The association said the remaining hospitals that did not meet this standard would be modernized by 2025.

A separate standard under the same law – requiring by 2030, that hospital buildings be able to provide services and remain functional in the aftermath of the earthquake – is what the association is seeking to delay and scale back. The association said nearly two-thirds of California hospitals did not meet the target.

“We are focused on services that have to be operational in the event of a disaster,” Simon said. “Does it really need to be everything? Should the plastic surgery wards be operational?”

Under the Hospital Consortium proposal, only emergency departments and related services required during a disaster would be required to submit to the added earthquake standards, with an additional seven years to comply.

Previous efforts to change the law’s requirements, including last year’s bill, failed in the legislature.

“What is different this time, and the unfortunate thing, is that the Hospital Association is making a failed legislative bid and is using the budget process to achieve its end goal,” said Stephanie Roberson, a lobbyist for the California Nurses Assn. “The process is being abused here. The legislature has spoken. There must be a hard pause.”

With Newsom’s election looming, the governor’s support for the assembly’s request to defer action may backfire for him in the short term, said Larry Gerston, professor emeritus of political science at San Jose State University.

Gerston, who is writing a book on the subpoena, said its supporters have been combing Newsom’s background and day-to-day activities to use anything that might support the cause they make to the public that cannot be trusted.

“Once this becomes public, I think these people are going to jump into it, not as an issue, but as another example,” Gerston said. “They keep stinging, and Newsom helps them sting. There have been so many unintentional mistakes, and they take advantage of every single one of them.”

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