Emergency care unit proposed to fill a void in portion of Stanislaus County
A state bill authored by Assemblyman Juan Alanis, R-Modesto, would authorize a rural emergency stabilization care unit, or RESCU, in Patterson, which is almost 20 miles from the nearest emergency room.
The Del Puerto Health Care District has plans for a health care campus and hospital in Patterson, but the hospital won’t open before 2035. The freestanding unit, if approved by state lawmakers, would be staffed according to emergency care standards and would receive patients daily, around the clock, until the permanent hospital opens.
The Assembly approved AB 2282 on a 76-0 vote May 28. Lawmakers will consider the bill in committee before it’s set for a Senate vote.
The Del Puerto district said in a news release that the temporary RESCU will make sure the community has access to emergency care while the hospital is built. The district expects to start construction next year on a campus to include a new ambulance facility, a behavioral health center, an 80,000-square-foot office building, an assisted living center and a 25-bed critical-access hospital.
The stabilization unit would provide emergency evaluation and care, imaging and lab services.
The health care district has served the 370-square-mile west Stanislaus County region since 1946, operating a hospital from 1950 to 1998. A survey found that one-third of Patterson residents were not able to access medical care in the past year.
The growth-minded city expanded from 12,000 residents in year 2000 to more than 26,000 today, and with continued development, could exceed 65,000 within 15 years.
In a medical emergency, a Patterson resident faces a 25- to 30-minute ambulance ride to a hospital in Turlock or Modesto. Those extra miles increase risks of death from a heart attack, stroke or trauma injuries.
State law requires the California Department of Public Health to issue a special permit for a RESCU if conditions are met. The facility is required to provide the highest quality of care feasible and must be staffed by physicians who are board-certified in emergency care.
The stabilization unit also needs to have transfer agreements with hospitals within a 30-mile radius.
Alanis said in a news release that West Side residents have driven past empty fields to reach emergency care since the closure of Del Puerto Hospital in 1998. He said his bill “puts lifesaving care where it belongs — close to home — while Del Puerto Health Care District finishes the job of bringing a permanent hospital back to Patterson.”
Karin Freese, chief executive officer of Del Puerto Health Care District, said it’s not clear yet if the RESCU would be a freestanding facility. One option on the drawing board is to build a third of the hospital first, which would include the emergency care facility.
An analysis for AB 2282 cites the argument that the lack of emergency care in the Patterson is not a minor inconvenience but “a public health emergency in slow motion.”
The bill won’t change the regulatory framework, the analysis says, but authorizes a narrowly scoped special permit for the health care district.
