Lives are saved at the only urgent care center in Malibu within 18 miles.
By Tracy Marcynzsyn /Special to The Malibu Times
The nonprofit organization, Friends of Malibu Urgent Care, raised more than $1,000,000 in four months, successfully preventing the Malibu Urgent Care Center from closing its doors due to lack of funding.
“Three years ago we were trying very hard to make it stay open,” said Helene Eisenberg, a Malibu resident who, with resident Marlene Matlow, spearheaded the effort to create Friends of Malibu Urgent Care after a subsidy-cutback from St. John’s Hospital and Health Care Center left the Malibu Urgent Care Center flailing for funding. With the help of Friends, Malibu’s urgent care center is now thriving with new equipment, soon-to-be-implemented longer hours and plans for future expansion.
Comprised of 10-12 board members and some thousand contributors, Friends of Malibu Urgent Care hopes to raise $5,000,000 to buy equipment, fund extended hours and help develop a new facility for the Malibu Urgent Care Center. Most of the monies raised to date are from residents in the Malibu Colony, Carbon Beach, Point Dume, Paradise Cove, and Serra Retreat areas, according to Michael Klein, chairman of the organization. Foundations in town, the City of Malibu and St. John’s Hospital have also contributed to the cause, as have many of the urgent care’s patients who give their co-pays to the center, said Klein.
The money raised by the group has been used to keep the center operating, which costs $235 per hour, and to purchase key equipment such as a digital defibrillator for the center.
Lives have already been saved using equipment purchased by the nonprofit group for the center. According to Matlow, vice-president of Friends, the digital defibrillator has been used many times.
“If you save one life per year, you’ve done your work,” said Klein, who added that a digital x-ray machine is also on its way to the center.
Klein said this machine would allow the urgent care center to transmit images to hospitals like St. John’s. “We want to have enough technology to seamlessly get an emergency room ready [at another location], while stabilizing the patient locally,” Klein said.
Ultrasound equipment and a CBC machine, making it possible to read lab work on the premises, are other pieces of equipment heading the organization’s wish list.
Extending the center’s hours of operation to 12 hours daily is scheduled to begin as early as this summer, according to Klein, who also said his organization hopes to add more ER doctors to the staff. “We are working toward the augmentation of the current ER doctors, hopefully [having an ER doctor on staff] seven days a week,” said Klein, who added that emergency room doctors are expensive.
Looking ahead, Friends of Malibu Urgent Care plans to be instrumental in the creation of a new state-of-the-art facility that will house permanent doctors’ offices and provide doctors and staff with the “ability to communicate virtually with the emergency room at St. John’s Hospital.”
Working with the landlord, Malibu Bay Company, along with the Coastal Commission and the City of Malibu, Friends is dedicated to funding the clinic.
“Funding the clinic is a community concern,” Matlow said, as Malibu’s proximity to the nearest hospital makes the presence of an area urgent care center critical.
“It’s essential,” Klein said. “It could prevent deaths-the highway poses such a dilemma. “At times, Malibu is stranded.”
The closest hospital to Malibu is St. John’s Hospital in Santa Monica, about 18 miles from Malibu. “The mileage is less important than the time,” explained Klein, who noted that summer traffic, as well as mudslides, fires and accidents that occur along the Pacific Coast Highway could cause lengthy delays.
Celebrity fundraisers are being planned for the future, allowing the community to come together to support the cause. Anyone wishing to make a donation to Friends of Malibu Urgent Care may call 310. 456.0512.