Kaiser Richmond Medical Center is a large Kaiser Permanente hospital in downtown Richmond, California which serves 77,000 members registered under its medical plans. It opened in 1995 replacing the historic 1942 Richmond Field Hospital that serviced Liberty shipyard workers and thus gave birth to the HMO. However it was deemed seismically unsafe and this new campus was built.
History
Richmond Field Hospital, 1942
The current facility was built to replace an aging World War II era field hospital. The Kaiser Richmond Field Hospital opened in 1942 to serve workers at the Richmond Shipyards who had signed up for the "Kaiser Plan", one of the first voluntary prepaid health plans and a direct precursor to the modern Health Maintenance Organization (HMO). The original hospital closed in 1995. Along with the entire neighborhood of Atchison Village, it is now on the National Register of Historic Places and is part of Rosie the Riveter/World War II Home Front National Historical Park.
Current facility, 1995
The current facility was built during the early 1990s at a cost of $50 million, and opened in 1995.
The hospital was originally one pavilion, but was expanded to three in the 1990s, including upgrading to a full hospital service including surgery and emergency. The hospital portion underwent further expansion in 2006. The hospital described as having "state-of-the-art" facilities upon opening has several ghost wards of that caliber. It was built with a fully operational intensive care unit that has never been opened or used in addition to several other inactive pavilions. The smaller field hospital had in fact maintained an ICU for this city until that point. In 1997 the hospital stopped admitting patients overnight due to the fact that it only filled on average 20 of the 50 spaces in its overnight ward. In 1998 hundreds of doctors, nurses, patients, and hospital members and users protested at Richmond Civic Center for the hospital to actually operate the full service emergency room that it was built for. Advances in surgical techniques and medical practices in addition to cost cutting efficiency measures led to a dramatic decrease in hospitalizations in the 1990s from what had been forecast for the campus. This led the hospital to try and lease some of its excess space and departments to Brookside Hospital, Doctors Medical Center Pinole, and the county hospital in Martinez. In 1996 a home care division that sends nurses to the residences of terminally ill patients was added.
The facility routinely receives victims of Richmond's industrial environmental catastrophes such as the General Chemical Company and PBE Polymers explosions or Chevron Richmond Refinery spills. The Fire Chief is Jim Fajardo. In such situations the Richmond Fire Department orders a shelter in place order, emergency warning sirens sound and dozens to hundreds are hospitalized here. They are often brought by commandeered AC Transit buses.
Facilities
Richmond Medical Center has 41 departments and services offered to its members.
Emergency services
The hospital offers basic 24-hour emergency medical services. There is also some emergency surgery performed here, but most are forwarded to Kaiser Oakland or John Muir Medical Center hospitals.
Special services
Richmond Medical Center has Benefits Advocacy and Social Services departments to assist those with the state funded Medi-Cal health plan. This is a health coverage for those who are on welfare, poor, disabled, and seniors. The department assists patients to access their benefits and navigate applications and appeals.
The hospital offers specialty services in transgender care.