Cancer Center in Westlake to Be Shut Down

THOUSAND OAKS — Less than a year after converting a community hospital into a cancer center, Salick Health Care Inc. is planning to close its Westlake facility by Aug. 11, officials confirmed Friday.

Salick physicians and employees said they learned in a meeting Thursday that the center would be shut down and the building that once housed Westlake Medical Center could be sold.

Salick officials blamed, in part, a restrictive deed that prohibits the firm from expanding beyond a few specialty services.

“Due to financial considerations and the deed restrictions, we made a decision to cease operations,” said Patrick McDonough, executive director of the cancer center.

McDonough declined to discuss possible buyers, but sources said Columbia/HCA, the giant hospital chain that sold the facility to Salick last year, is considering buying it back.

The hospital was the center of a legal battle last summer when then-owner Columbia announced that, contrary to earlier promises, it would close the facility.

In response, 300 local residents launched a rare public demonstration in an attempt to save the emergency room there.

At the time, Salick was leasing space inside the hospital for its comprehensive cancer center and acted on an option to buy the property.

Salick purchased the facility, which straddles the Los Angeles-Ventura county line, for $8 million in July.

But Columbia imposed deed restrictions that limited Salick to treating only cancer, immune-deficient, dialysis and organ-transplant patients. Columbia insisted that those restrictions were tied to the property.

Salick challenged those restrictions in court, arguing that they apply only to Salick, not to any other health care provider to whom Salick might someday lease or sell the facility.

In addition, Salick charged Columbia with illegally monopolizing health care services in the Conejo Valley. The hospital chain also owns facilities in Thousand Oaks and West Hills.

The move to close the cancer center and possibly sell it back to Columbia would most likely put an end to the litigation, and to residents’ hopes for an emergency room and full-service hospital.

“I’m disappointed for all of those employees who find themselves in a difficult position,” said Westlake Village Mayor Doug Yarrow. “And the community is losing a world-class comprehensive cancer center.”

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Dr. Bernard Salick, who no longer runs the company bearing his name, said recent events underscore the ethical problems that arise when a major pharmaceutical concern also provides health care.

Zeneca PLC, a British drug manufacturer, took control of Salick Health Care in April and promptly terminated Dr. Salick.

“It has little to do with the community or local doctors,” said Salick, who has since started a new company to compete with his old one. “It had to do with two international players striking a deal based on international factors.”

The decision to close the hospital flies in the face of commitments made to the community, Salick said. The Westlake facility is the chain’s only stand-alone cancer center. The other 10 are based in or next to existing hospitals.

He added that although the Westlake hospital lost some money initially, the long-term vision was to win the lawsuit, dissolve the deed restrictions and contract with another hospital provider to replace Westlake Medical Center.

Should the property go on the market, Dr. Salick, a Hidden Valley resident, said he would buy it because he believes the area could support a cancer center and second hospital.

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Salick Health Care’s exit from the area will not interrupt another hospital chain’s plans to open a 24-hour urgent care center in the Westlake neighborhood of Thousand Oaks.

Tenet Health Care Corp. of Santa Barbara, the nation’s No. 2 hospital chain, is finalizing an agreement to sublease a building from Salick Health Care to house the urgent care center, said Tenet spokeswoman Joan Galvan.

“Within 60 days of closing the lease, we would expect to open the urgent care center,” which is designed to replace the services lost when Columbia closed Westlake Medical Center’s emergency room, Galvan said.

In addition, Tenet has been surveying local doctors to determine whether the market would support a second hospital in the Conejo Valley.

“We are committed to having a presence in Westlake, and the way we’re going right now is to have the urgent care center,” she said.

One local doctor who attended the Thursday meeting where employees received their pink slips said the announcement came as a surprise.

“I really don’t know much about what is going on. . . . This basically is between Columbia, Zeneca and Tenet.”