St. John's Regional Medical Center in Oxnard would start slowing down operations in late July as part of a possible 10-day August closure to fumigate for mold, hospital officials said.

A final decision on closure hasn't been made and hinges on finalizing negotiations with a company called Sabre Technical Services that would use chlorine dioxide gas to fight the mold, officials said. The 265-bed hospital's parent company, Catholic Healthcare West, also needs to sign off and is scheduled to consider the plan in a board meeting on June 27.

Hospital spokeswoman Rita O'Connor said Thursday that officials don't expect any barriers to the closure.
St. John's is the county's busiest hospital and its emergency room saw more than 45,000 patients last year, creating concern about how the closure will affect patients and other hospitals.

"Where are the patients going to go?" asked Roberto Juarez, ceo of Clinicas Camino del Real, which operates clinics in west Ventura County for low-income people. He worries about everything from emergency room patients not getting the care they need to the bilingual capabilities of other hospitals.
"It's huge," he said of the closing.

Hospital officials say they've been working with area hospitals and government agencies to prepare for the possible closure and make sure patients would still get what they need.

This week, hospital officials provided more information on the timing of the closure. They reiterated the hospital would close on Aug. 14. It would reopen on Aug. 24 pending an evaluation by the state Department of Health Services. The emergency room would stop accepting patients earlier, on Aug. 8.

Other key dates include:

n July 29: No more admissions of patients undergoing physical rehabilitation.

n Aug. 6: No more admissions of elective patients to medical and surgical units. Emergency admissions would continue until Aug. 8.

n Aug. 10: Probable end of admissions to the hospital's obstetrics department and the neonatal intensive care unit. A final decision is expected by end of June.

n Aug. 14: Any remaining patients would be transferred and the hospital would close.
n Aug. 16-17: The hospital would be tented.

n Aug. 18: Chlorine dioxide would be distributed for 12 to 14 hours. Afterward, the gas would be neutralized in a process called scrubbing.

n Aug. 19: The tent would be removed.

All food and medications would be removed from the hospital before the fumigation, along with some medical and surgical supplies and equipment.

The hospital's adjacent medical office building would be sealed off from the hospital but would close the night of Aug. 17 and reopen the morning of Aug. 20.

http://www.venturacountystar.com/news/2007/jun/14/st_johns_close/