Seton Medical Center Coastside emergency room to close for months

But Mueller’s office has repeatedly been denied the information that AMHC Healthcare — the owner of Daly City’s Seton Hospital and Seton Coastside — provided to the Department of Health in support of their request to close the emergency room, he said.

“We at the county don’t have any record of why they would need to close the emergency room,” Mueller, who represents the coastside on the San Mateo Board of Supervisors, said. “We don’t have any record of any damage caused by a storm that would necessitate a closure of that length.”

Schulze said that Seton Medical Center had worked closely with the Department of Public Health to move forward with the closure and would be beginning 24/7 construction work to finish as quickly as possible, although he could not comment on Mueller’s concerns.

“We’re expediting this so we can reopen the facility to the community,” he said.

A press release from Seton Medical Center said the decision to close the emergency room was made after a “thorough assessment of damages” from last year’s storms, which revealed “the need for extensive repair to the building’s infrastructure.”

Mueller maintained that the shutdown could be in violation of AMHC Healthcare’s 2020 purchase of the two facilities, which stipulated that the hospital must stay open for at least 5 1/2 years and only close for the minimum amount of time possible if a closure was required.

“Because this is the only emergency room facility on the coast, it’s really important — in light of the fact it was a requirement in the Department of Justice’s approval of the hospital purchase, it’s incumbent to keep it closed for the smallest length possible if it was required to be closed at all,” he said.

Mueller’s office is calling for a full investigation and public reporting of the information that granted the closure, as well as public reporting regarding Medicare’s current one-star rating of both Seton Hospital and Seton Coastside.

“It’s another piece of concern with regard to services, trying to assess whether or not the one-star rating affects their ability to take patients at the emergency room, to take patients at the hospital,” he said.

Supervisor David Canepa, who represents Daly City and was a proponent of AMHC Healthcare’s purchase of the Seton campuses to facilitate local health care coverage, said that keeping the emergency room open should remain a priority.

“What’s most important is they need to do whatever they can to get that emergency room online as quickly as possible,” he said. “In the interim, I do think that the county needs to be creative.”

Canepa suggested that the county look into offering urgent care or emergency room services from the county’s coastside clinic to fill the gap while repairs were being made, although he said he was supportive of Mueller’s push for answers from the hospital.

“We need to make sure we hold AHMC accountable, make sure they explain to us clearly what is going on. It’s important, let’s recognize this, if there is an issue on the coast, we need to figure out, as a county, what we’re going to do,” he said.

The coastside is particularly vulnerable to isolation in the event of inclement weather or storms, Mueller said, making it additionally important that the region has 24-hour care to rely on.

“The coast often gets cut off in natural hazard events. If you’re closing the [emergency room], you’ve got to provide all the information about it publicly,” he said.