A recent article appearing in California Watch contends that state authorities and hospital officials have failed to notify the general public about serious structural weaknesses at more than a dozen hospital buildings, including facilities in the Bay Area and Southern California.

California is focused on nearly 700 hospital buildings that were identified in the 1990s as potentially dangerous. The State’s licensing authority can revoke a hospital’s license – thereby shutting it down – if the facility does not retrofit certain buildings by the statutory deadline (2013 or 2015, and in some instances 2020). The article is critical of state oversight because it does not force hospitals to determine the risk of collapse.

The most current cost estimate for bringing all of California’s hospital buildings into seismic compliance is $110 billion, without financing charges, according to the RAND organization. This law is the most expensive unfunded mandate in the history of California. Hospitals buildings in California constructed prior to 1973 were built to the same building codes as other private or public buildings in a community (e.g., stores, child care centers, places of worship, etc.). Even while a vast number of hospitals proceed toward the retrofitting requirements under current law, even those pre-1973 buildings are still safer than any other buildings.

Without question, under the current law hospitals may face closure if not compliant by 2013, 2015, or 2020. Unfortunately, state law precludes any meaningful expedition of this process. If California faces the closure of hospital beds for any reason, there is a good chance a community may experience more deaths due to a lack of access to hospital care than it would experience from having a non-compliant hospital building. According to an August 2009 survey, 64% of California’s hospitals will not be able to access the financial capital necessary to meet the deadlines for seismic retrofitting.[audio:http://hospitalstay.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/2-05-Shake.mp3|titles=Shake]