East County voters will have a chance to improve their access to quality health care and ensure local access to life-saving emergency care by voting Yes on Proposition G on June 6. It is a rare occasion when we have the opportunity to directly participate in shaping the direction of vital services that at some point will have a significant effect on all of us.
For more than 50 years, residents of El Cajon, La Mesa, Santee, Lakeside, Lemon Grove, Alpine, Spring Valley, San Diego and East County's rural communities have relied on Grossmont Hospital as their community hospital.
During that time, East County's population has grown from 70,000 to nearly 500,000. Within the last 10 years, four local hospitals have closed, leaving Grossmont Hospital as the only independent community-owned hospital dedicated to serving East County.
Although well maintained, after decades of constant and increasing use the hospital's core medical facilities built through a citizen-approved bond measure a half-century ago have become outdated and overcrowded. Proposition G would add patient beds, operating rooms with the latest medical technology and a host of medical facilities to serve our growing community.
Proposition G would upgrade and expand advanced, rapid response cardiac care facilities and provide the latest medical technology for patient diagnosis, treatment and recovery. The measure also would provide funding to rehabilitate deteriorated hospital infrastructure such as plumbing, electrical and ventilation systems.
Grossmont Hospital's Emergency Department is the busiest in San Diego County. Proposition G would complete three unfinished floors of Grossmont Hospital's Emergency and Critical Care Center, adding more than 90 beds and reduce overcrowding and Emergency Room wait times. That means more patients could receive timely treatment and keep the ER from going on bypass – and diverting ambulances elsewhere, which costs precious minutes for patients.
Well-meaning California legislators have enacted a number of unfunded mandates, the most expensive of which requires that all hospitals meet more rigorous earthquake safety code requirements by 2013. Since most hospitals cannot be cost-effectively remodeled to meet these codes, many buildings constructed before 1980 may need to be replaced.
Proposition G would enable the hospital to meet state seismic safety upgrades, ensuring East County's primary provider of emergency medical care remains operational in the aftermath of an earthquake or some other disaster.
A Yes vote on Proposition G helps give East County residents more control over the future of health care provided to our families, friends and ourselves and ensures we will always have a local, community-owned hospital to serve East County.
Proposition G is a smart investment that addresses the most critical medical needs facing East County residents. Its dividends are priceless. We urge East County voters to join doctors, nurses, firefighters, business and community leaders in securing their access to quality health care, now and in the future, by voting Yes on Proposition G.
Ghio is chief of the San Miguel Fire Protection District. Kobernick is an emergency physician at Grossmont Hospital. Peddecord is professor emeritus, Graduate School of Public Health, San Diego State University.
