Majority of Hospitals in California Are at Risk of Collapse in the Event of an Earthquake
Posted on: Wednesday, 12 April 2006, 18:00 CDT
SACRAMENTO, Calif., April 12 /PRNewswire/ -- The One-Hundredth Anniversary on April 18, 1906, of the San Francisco Earthquake and the devastation that ensued reminds us to remember, learn, and prepare for the next earthquake.
California is earthquake country. The one thing we know for certain about earthquakes is that the next big one is closer today than it was yesterday. The one building every community needs after an earthquake is the hospital.
On the anniversary of the San Francisco earthquake, are California hospitals ready? No. More than half of all hospitals in California have at least one hospital building that is at risk of collapse in an earthquake (OSHPD, 2001).
In 1906, San Francisco was not ready for the Big One. Today, despite laws requiring hospitals to rebuild or retrofit their buildings so that the buildings do not collapse in a major quake, more than half of all hospitals have buildings that are unsafe.
San Francisco General, California Pacific Medical Center, Summit in Oakland, Childrens Oakland, and Seton Medical Center in San Mateo, all contain hospital buildings that are unsafe.
And this is not just an urban problem: throughout the foothills of California are small, rural hospitals also facing risk of collapse: hospitals in Tuolumne, Amador, Weaverville, and Coalinga all have unsound buildings.
SEIU calls on the Governor and the Legislature to include hospital seismic retrofit in any bond deal. Some hospitals and some hospital systems can afford to do this on their own, some need a little help, and some need a lot of financial assistance to rebuild. California can stretch these bond dollars farther by using a revolving loan fund and by drawing down matching federal dollars through the Medi-Cal program.
In the 1971 Sylmar quake, 52 people were killed in collapsing hospital buildings. A law was passed requiring new hospital buildings to be safe.
In 1994, in the Northridge quake, twelve hospitals were severely damaged or closed and 2500 beds put out of service.
Today the law requires hospitals to be rebuilt or retrofitted by 2013. A major construction project such as a hospital can easily take five to seven years to complete. That means that hospitals that have not yet begun construction planning and engineering are unlikely to meet the deadline.
Can we afford to rebuild our hospitals? On the anniversary of the San Francisco quake, California's hospital workers ask: can we afford not to?
SEIU California State Council
CONTACT: Paola Hernandez, +1-619-850-9550, or Jeanine Meyer Rodriguez,+1-916-712-2914
Web site: http://www.seiuca.org/
Source: PRNewswire
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