Orange County has instructed emergency dispatchers and paramedics to stop routing stroke patients to Orange County Global Medical Center following complaints and state findings of substandard care at the financially troubled hospital.
The county’s Emergency Medical Services on Thursday, July 17, indefinitely suspended Orange County Global as one of nine medical facilities designated by the county as a “stroke neurology receiving center,” which are considered specially equipped to treat stroke patients. Under county guidelines, 911 dispatchers and paramedics must route stroke patients to a stroke center, bypassing other hospitals without such a designation.
The suspension becomes effective at 7 a.m. Friday, according to a statement by county EMS Medical Director Carl Schultz. However, Orange County Global retains its national title as a “comprehensive stroke center” — meaning it is deemed by accreditors to be able to handle complex cases — and remains one of three trauma centers in the county, treating the region’s critically injured.
A spokesman for Orange County Global said the Santa Ana hospital, one of several in the Global Medical Center network, would work with EMS officials to try to regain its designation as a stroke center. The spokesman offered no further comment.
The county’s decision to suspend the 282-bed hospital was prompted by a complaint from a woman whose husband waited nearly eight hours for an emergency stroke surgery because Orange County Global allegedly didn’t have the necessary equipment and a qualified neurosurgeon to conduct the operation.
The county announcement also comes five days after the Orange County Register published details of a state investigation in February that found troubling practices at the hospital, which serves many poor and vulnerable patients. The medical center has since been declared by the state to have corrected the problems that Orange County Supervisor Vicente Sarmiento called “appalling.”
“This hospital serves some of our most vulnerable residents, many from communities who don’t have the luxury of choosing where to seek medical care, and it is unconscionable that patients should experience unsafe conditions, delays in care or outright neglect,” Sarmiento said. “It is my goal that they can correct these issues and can provide Santa Ana area residents with the highest standard of care.”
Orange County Supervisor Janet Nguyen joined Sarmiento in calling for CalOptima Health — the county’s health insurance provider for the poor — to keep watch on the care provided by Orange County Global. Nguyen urged CalOptima to look into the hospital and come back with a report in 30 days.
“If (Orange County Global) can’t handle the job, we shouldn’t give it to them,” Nguyen said. “Why did it take the state to intervene?”
Sarmiento sits on the CalOptima board, while Nguyen is an alternate member.
Among the problems found by the California Department of Public Health:
- The hospital routinely failed to pay contractors and suppliers, who then withheld services and equipment crucial to patient care. In one case, hundreds of lab samples went unprocessed for more than two weeks, including emergency tests to determine if patients had major illnesses, because the hospital had not paid its contracted laboratory. According to one lawsuit, a stroke patient did not get a needed brain catheter because the hospital was in arrears to the supplier.
- Medical staff inadvertently dislodged a patient’s tracheostomy tube during a routine test and were unable to reestablish it, causing the patient to die.
- The hospital failed for months to fix a broken heating system, leaving patients in the emergency department shivering in the winter and making it impossible to maintain the appropriate temperature and humidity ratio to prevent bacteria from growing and fires from erupting in the oxygen-rich operating rooms.
- Hospital administrators failed to repair a faulty water heater, resulting in a lack of hot water needed to sterilize instruments and for surgery staff to wash their hands.
In a written statement last week, Peter Baronoff, managing director of hospital owner KPC Health, blamed Orange County Global’s problems on industrywide financial pressures affecting hospitals that treat low-income and uninsured patients.
“Safety net hospitals, which serve as lifelines for our most vulnerable populations, face reduced Medicaid coverage for their patient populations and declining Medicaid reimbursements,” Baronoff said, noting that other hospital chains are cutting services, laying off staff or declaring bankruptcy because of rising costs and low reimbursements.
Besides the deficiencies found by the state, former stroke patients alleged in two lawsuits that they received inadequate care that caused them harm.
In a lawsuit filed May 19, attorneys for stroke patient Khusro Jhumra, 51, said he needed a brain catheter, but the supplier had cut off the hospital for not paying its bills. Jhumra also needed immediate surgery but had to wait nearly eight hours because the hospital did not have a qualified neurosurgeon on call, according to the suit. The delay caused Jhumra to sustain major brain damage, the suit alleges.
Paramedics rushed Jhumra in July 2024 to Orange County Global as a designated stroke center. Documents obtained by the Orange County Register indicate his wife, Maliha Siddiqui, complained to county EMS, which triggered their investigation.
On Thursday, Siddiqui’s attorney, Dan Hodes, responded to the news of the suspension: “I’m very gratified that OC EMS did the right thing. Our community is safer now.”
Siddiqui added, “It’s too late for my husband and I, and our family will pay the price for the rest of our lives. But I’m happy that we were able to make a difference for our communities. This is a hospital that prioritizes profits over patients and should not be allowed to operate this way.”
In another lawsuit filed in June, Sarah Martin, 56, alleged that Orange County Global negligently delayed diagnosing and treating her brain aneurysm.
Martin said she went to the hospital’s emergency department on April 29, 2024, complaining of excruciating, shooting pain in the upper part of her face and scalp. She added that an ER physician diagnosed her as having a migraine and sent her home to “sleep it off.”
Martin returned to Orange County Global the following day, still complaining of pain. Although an ER physician ordered a CT angiogram for Martin, who was admitted to the hospital, the test was never performed, according to the state report.
Martin said it wasn’t until 17 hours after her second visit to the ER that an interventional radiologist finally took her to surgery for a coil embolization procedure to stop the bleeding in her brain.
