Berkeley’s only hospital and emergency room plans to shut down in 14 years to avoid state-mandated earthquake safety upgrades that hospital officials say would require costly reconstruction. Long known as Alta Bates Medical Center — but renamed Alta Bates Summit Medical Center in 2000 when it merged with Summit Medical Center in Oakland — the Berkeley hospital and its acute-care facilities aren’t up to state standards that require acute-care buildings to remain operable after a major earthquake. According to Alta Bates Summit Medical Center CEO Chuck Prosper, it’s also closing to cut costs...
We're facing a public health crisis in the inner East Bay. With the Alta Bates’ Berkeley Hospital closing, that leaves the 27 mile I-80 corridor from Oakland to Vallejo without a publicly-accessible Emergency Room. (Kaiser doesn't count, they're private and for members only.)
A half-million people, the size of the City of Fresno, will have to drive an hour or more, in traffic, for emergency services. What a debacle!
(Photo courtesy of pengrin on Flickr. Used under Creative Commons license.)