Stop, Drop and Roll

03 January 2008 | Alameda Community | John Knox White

On Tuesday, the Alameda Journal covered something I had meant to write about last November. Which was a new state law, approved in mid-November, that allows for hospitals to postpone state-mandated seismic retrofits until 2030 (the current deadline is 2013).

Alameda Hospital is one of the hospitals that is required to retrofit, and this week, the hospital applied for a postponement (the subject of the AJ’s article). The postponement will save the hospital $5-6million in the short run. With the continuing budget deficit at the hospital, one can understand the eagerness to postpone a $6+ million charge.

The article quotes the two newest members of the hospital board as saying:

“However, Alameda health care district board members Jordan Battani and Rob Bonta said the 2030 standards likely will not require the reconstruction of the Alameda facility, whose oldest building was built in 1925. The other two buildings were erected later.”

I was able to get some background on this according to Alameda hospital staff:

The Hospital is comprised of three primary buildings: constructed in 1925 (East Building), 1956 (West Building), and 1985 (South Building).  The East Building does not comply with SB1953 2013 requirements, but also contains no inpatient services and hence require no seismic upgrade.  The South Building, which houses the majority of the inpatient services, is compliant with the 2013 standards and hence requires no further seismic upgrade. The remaining Hospital building, the West Building, does not meet certain aspects of the 2013 standards, currently houses some acute and long term inpatient services.

It is the West Building that requires $5-6 million in retrofitting according to a 2005 consultants report. The hospital is not very hopeful that their application for extension will be approved and is planning on spending the next year looking at options for retrofitting or moving the beds in the West Building to a new location. One of the interesting ideas appears to use the proposed VA facility proposed at Alameda Point.

The VA is looking for a private partner to run some of its facilities and Alameda Hospital is interested in pursuing this idea. I have to say, it seems like an idea firing on all cylinders, especially if the VA is paying to building the building, thus allowing the Hospital to avoid the retrofit.

I’ll try and keep this on my radar over the coming year, unfortunately, the hospital board info is not as easy to get a hold of as the council, boards, commissions, and school board’s.

Whatever happens, I would hope the hospital finds a solution sooner rather than later, it would be terribly ironic if the voters of Alameda approved (by a supermajority) to fund the Hospital to keep it open in an emergency, only to have some of it fall down during one such disaster.