Alleyway Limits Access for Hospital Patients

For patients currently living in Highland Park Skilled Nursing Care and Wellness Center on Monte Vista St., accessing the outside world can be a daunting proposition due to their the physical limitations.

However, even those patients who are eager to venture beyond the facility's walls are faced with the additional obstacle of navigating a treacherous stretch of alleyway that intersects with Monte Vista St., which the hospital's staff say is in desperate need of repaving.

According to Myles Andrews, the hospital's administrative director, two patients have fallen out of their wheelchairs while they tried to traverse the alleyway, and many more won't even bother trying to cross it.

"Only two of our 58 patients are self-ambulatory; the 56 other patients have to use that alleyway to get in and out. They have to go down that alleyway. There's no other option," he said. "Every time somebody leaves, the staff goes in to a blind panic about whether somebody's going fall over."

The pitted and potholed alleyway also makes for a bumpy ride for the numerous patients who are transported from the facility every day by ambulance, said Jurmy Vicente, a staff member at the hospital.

"It's bad enough that they have to be in an ambulance in the first place," she said. "Then they have to suffer through that ride? It's difficult."

Andrews told Highland Park-Mount Washington Patch that he's already spent $14,500 of the hospital's capital improvement funds to pave the facility's rear parking lot, which is the location of the hospital's only wheelchair accessible entrance.

Now, he said, he's hoping council member Ed Reyes can do his part by securing funds to pay for the paving of the alleyway.

"We've had a couple of visits from field representatives  from his office, and they seem to have taken a great interest in our situation," he said. "It seems like they really do want to make a difference, but we understand that the wheels of city government move glacially slow." 

Among the field representatives from Reyes' office to visit the center was Lynelle Scaduto, who told Highland Park-Mount Washington Patch that there are currently no city funds available for repaving.

"There's no money for repaving in the budget right now," Scaduto said. "I did meet with the facility's staff about two months ago and put in a request for funds to patch some of the potholes, though."

In the meantime, Andrews said he'll continue to work to ensure that the hospital's patients feel connected to the outside world.

He's currently putting together plans to stage a concert on Monte Vista Street near the hospital, and he frequently schedules trips to television screenings in Hollywood for those patients who are eager to venture outside the facility.

In fact, the hospital is scheduled to be honored by the California Association of Health Facilities for encouraging a positive representation of long-term care in the media for it's participation in the filming of an episode the Style Network's program How Do I Look.

The hospital was used as the setting for the reality show, in which the main character needs to put together a wardrobe that's appropriate for a hospital setting.

That Andrews was even willing to have the facility portrayed on television is a testament to how far the facility has come under his stewardship since he took over in 2008.

According to the State of California's Health Facilities Consumer Information System, the hospital has reduced its number of survey deficiencies from 70 in 2007, the year before Andrews took over, to only one in 2010.

"When I started here we would have visits from the department of public health every 10 days," he said. "Our last visit was last week, and it was something we reported something ourselves. Our last visit before that was July; that's a span of eight months. We've come a long way from the dark old days."