Advisory body larger than needed

Mission Hospital Laguna Beach officials went “above and beyond” the attorney general’s requirement for a 15-member Community Advisory Council, appointing 24 people to a body that will meet privately to discuss hospital issues, hospital Vice President for Operations Michael Beck said Tuesday at a hospital forum.

Members of the South Laguna Civic Assn. took Beck to task over who was and was not appointed to the committee — and the fact that meetings are private — at the monthly Neighbor Forum sponsored by the hospital.

The California attorney general, which required the advisory council as one of many conditions of Mission’s purchase of the former South Coast Medical Center in April, did not require that advisory council members be made public or meetings be open to the public, said Paula Serios, vice president of marketing and communications for St. Joseph Health System, the overarching entity that operates the Catholic-affiliated hospital.

“The attorney general directed us to appoint a committee that was representative of the community served by the hospital and we talked to 225 people,” Serios said.

The advisory council’s purpose is “to foster increased communication between Mission Hospital Laguna Beach and the coastal communities in which it serves,” according to a Nov. 16 news release from the hospital.

Beck said the committee will advise the hospital on medical services, community benefit and care for the poor.

Beck said the hospital added people beyond the 15 required to have a widely diverse panel.

But none of the appointees were members of the South Laguna Civic Assn. Board of Directors, who feel they should be represented, according to those present at the meeting.

Association President Bill Rihn said his group, founded in 1946, had been instrumental in creating the hospital in the 1950s.

“What was the criteria for selecting the [advisory council] people?” Rihn asked. “You didn’t talk to SLCA at all.”

Ann Christoph, a former Laguna Beach mayor and association board member, complained the hospital ignored communications from the group.

“We asked you for a meeting, yet you didn’t talk to us,” she said.

Beck said he had been told that someone on the advisory council is a member of the association.