When Marina Hills Hospital closed in June 1990, hospital officials blamed California’s Medi-Cal system and its failure to pay the bills to nursing homes and hospitals.

Left with no choice, Marina Hills Hospital in Ladera Heights transferred its 25 patients to other hospitals ending months of financial problems, employee complaints, and a census that dropped to only one patient at times.

Even before the hospital closed, it had been operating under bankruptcy protection. At one point Marina Hills Hospital asked its employees, who were already owed back pay, to keep working so the Hospital could stay afloat.

According to the Hospital’s administrator: “Basically, we had about $1 million owing us from the state for Medi-Cal services. We found we couldn’t collect on them from the state until July. We couldn’t borrow any more money and we didn’t want to endanger any patients so we made a decision this morning (Friday) to just close down.”

The 103-bed facility employed 100 people.

The administrator added: “The closing is particularly tragic because we felt we could have broken even in June. The county Department of Health Services was sending us obstetrics cases and we were performing surgery.”

Marina Hills Hospital specialized in obstetrics cases, most of them funded by Medi-Cal or Medicare.