Hospitals: seismic safety.

Existing law, the Alfred E. Alquist Hospital Facilities Seismic Safety Act of 1983, establishes, under the jurisdiction of the Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development, a program of seismic safety building standards for certain hospitals constructed on and after March 7, 1973. Existing law authorizes the office to assess an application fee for the review of facilities design and construction, and requires that full and complete plans be submitted to the office for review and approval. Existing law requires that, after January 1, 2008, any general acute care hospital building that is determined to be at potential risk of collapse or pose significant loss of life be used only for nonacute care hospital purposes, except that the office may grant a 5-year extension under prescribed circumstances. Existing law also allows the office to grant an additional 2-year extension to the January 2008 deadline in specified circumstances. This bill would also allow the office to grant the additional 2-year extension for a hospital building that, among other requirements, is owned by a health care district that has, as owner, received the extension of the January 1, 2008, deadline, but where the hospital is operated by an unaffiliated 3rd-party lessee pursuant to a facility lease that extends at least through December 31, 2009, if the health care district requests the additional extension by March 1, 2010. This bill would require the district to file a declaration stating specified information as a condition for receiving the extension. This bill would prohibit the office from granting the extension if an unaffiliated 3rd-party lessee will operate the hospital beyond December 31, 2010, and would make the extension applicable only while the hospital is operated by the district or an entity under the control of the district. This bill would declare that it is to take effect immediately as an urgency statute.