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By Tina Fisher Cunningham
Fisher Forde Media 

Adventist assumes hospital operations

The Forde Files No 134

 

Teresa Adamo, courtesy of Adventist Health.

David Eastman with new sign on Nov. 2, 2016.

Adventist Health officially assumed management and operation of the Tehachapi Hospital and three clinics on Nov. 1, 2016 with a ribbon cutting on the tented hospital parking lot at E street and Curry. The Tehachapi Valley Healthcare District relinquished operation of its properties in a 30-year lease agreement with Adventist, an affiliation that enabled the district to complete the new hospital at Capital Hills. Adventist also will operate the new hospital when it opens.

"We made it," Adventist transition coordinator David Eastman said at the Greater Tehachapi Chamber of Commerce-sponsored ribbon cutting. "Tehachapi has warmly welcomed Adventist Health," he said. "It is clear why people chose to move here and chose never to leave."

Eastman said that a seven-inch stack of papers went to the state to achieve the changeover.

"We are celebrating the gathering of the harvest," Sharlet Briggs, CEO of San Joaquin Hospital (Tehachapi's Adventist partner in Bakersfield) said.

Since the RFP [Request for Proposal for affiliation] from the healthcare district, she said, Tehachapi community leaders and the Adventist team "grew the harvest to where we are today."

Adventist loves rural hospitals, she said. Of the health organization's 20 hospitals, 13 are in rural areas or are the only hospital for the community.

"This hospital is owned by the community," Briggs said. "You're putting your trust in us. We will be responsible stewards of that trust."

Healthcare district board member Dr. Sam Conklin called the transition a "red letter day" for the community, noting that the district was created 60 years ago after the retirement of husband and wife physicians Dr. Harold Schlottauer and Dr. Madge Schlottauer, who were Adventists as well. Conklin said much of the success in running the hospital is due to the devotion of the hospital workers.

Tina Fisher Cunningham

Ribbon cutting Nov. 1, 2016 marking transition of management from Tehachapi Valley Healthcare District to Adventist Health

Last-minute contract details kept district CEO Eugene Suksi, whose leadership smoothed the way to affiliation with Adventist, from the ceremonial event. He told the Greater Tehachapi Economic Development Council the next day that the transition caused no job loss for district employees. He said the new hospital is 90 percent complete and that new state regulations for pharmacies means that the pharmacy design will be modified before it is completed.

Ginger Scafide attended the ceremony with her husband Sam, who has been a long-term care resident of the Tehachapi Hospital for 10 years. She said the long-term care patients were concerned as to their fate, as Adventist has not indicated what purpose the old hospital will serve when the new one opens. (The structure must be retired as an acute care facility due to seismic regulations). According to Eastman, the long-term care patients, who number 17 at the moment, will not be abandoned. The state has granted a temporary waiver so they can move into the new facility. "We've got to take care of them," he said.

 
 

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