County public health officials directed ambulances to stop transporting patients to Anaheim Global Medical Center, suspending the general hospital’s designation as an emergency receiving center as of Wednesday, May 6.
“This suspension applies to patients arriving via the 911 system. The hospital’s emergency department remains open and continues to accept walk‑in patients,” OC Health Care Agency Interim EMS Medical Director Almaas A. Shaikh said in a Wednesday statement. Shaikh did not answer why the ER was closed to ambulances.
“At this time, no duration has been established for the suspension,” she said.
Anaheim Global, on South Anaheim Boulevard, just a few blocks northeast from Disneyland, is part of a network of “Global” brand hospitals in Southern California owned by KPC Health.
“Anaheim Global Medical Center is working with Orange County EMS to restore its Emergency Receiving Center status as expeditiously as possible,” Anaheim Global officials said in a statement. “In the meantime, the hospital remains safe, open, and operational.”
KPC Health, headquartered in Corona, also owns Chapman Global in Orange, South Coast Global and Orange County Global in Santa Ana, Hemet Global, Menifee Global and Victor Valley Global medical centers.
Anaheim Global in February received an “A” hospital safety grade from The Leapfrog Group, a nonprofit focused on patient safety that assigns grades to general hospitals across the country.
Anaheim Global is not the first hospital under the KPC Health umbrella to have such a designation suspended.
Last year, the county instructed emergency dispatchers and paramedics to stop routing stroke patients to Orange County Global Medical Center in Santa Ana following state findings of substandard care at the financially troubled hospital. Four months later, the hospital lost its county designation as one of nine stroke neurology-receiving centers in the county.
“We are all fortunate to have significant hospital and emergency capacity in our area, that if one site is impacted, there’s always availability at other sites as well,” Anaheim city spokesperson Mike Lyster said, naming a few nearby hospitals, including “the primary trauma hospital in our area” UC Health — Orange (previously UCI Medical Center) near Angel Stadium and about 3.5 miles southeast of Anaheim Global, Providence St. Joseph Hospital in Orange and Providence St. Jude Medical Center in Fullerton.
“They are all very, very close to us,” Lyster said. “There’s more than enough capacity.”