Operators expect to close the emergency room and stop offering acute care services on site as they consider the future of Providence Mission Hospital Laguna Beach.
Seth Teigen, chief executive of Providence Mission Hospital, updated the Laguna Beach City Council during a recent workshop on discussions the health-care system is having about the hospital, which would need to complete a $300 million retrofit to its nearly 70-year-old tower by 2030 to comply with California’s seismic safety mandates.
“We have no intention of leaving Laguna Beach, but the hospital will look different,” Teigen said, adding that Providence would also need to pay another $50 million to replace the facility’s original plumbing and electrical systems.
“The real key point and something we’ve never come out and said publicly, is that the plan does not include running an acute care hospital,” he told the council. “That plan is going to be doing healthcare at a very different way for Laguna Beach.”
Teigen explained that acute care includes inpatient care beds and the hospital’s emergency department. No timeline was given for potential changes.
The option for a standalone emergency room — something San Clemente officials and residents had hoped to keep when the community hospital there was shuttered by MemorialCare in 2016 — doesn’t exist, Teigen said, adding that such a facility requires additional services, such as radiology, surgery suites and laboratories, to accompany the emergency room.
“I think we recognize that of greatest interest to this community is how they access urgent or emergent care,” he told the council. “We hope you’ll allow us to come back as we get through this first phase of planning to unveil how we think we’re going to be able to deal with that patient population in a non-traditional model. A model that will really meet the needs of the community members in the city and the surrounding coastal cities as well.”
In 2025, as of Nov. 17, 950 people had been taken by the Fire Department to the Laguna Beach emergency room — of those 517 were residents.
Laguna Beach Fire Chief Niko King said Friday that his primary concern about not having an ER in town would be his department’s ambulances being out of town, driving a patient to another area hospital, when they’re needed.
“A critical patient treated in the back of an ambulance, be it they’re not breathing, their heart stopped, we have just about every technology they have in an emergency room,” he said. “Whether or not it’s going to be a 15 to 20 minute drive to a hospital Code 3 or a five-minute ride, it’s not that significant because we’ve made the intervention already.”
“The concern for me and for the fire service here is that right now I have two ambulances that are in service 24/7,” he said. “When they transport to Laguna hospital, it’s a five-minute transport time. They drop the patient off, do the paperwork, and they’re listening to the radio the whole time, so if another critical call comes in, they’re right back in the ambulance responding; they’re never leaving the community.”
“If they’re leaving, they don’t have the option to come back into service,” he added. “They can monitor the radio, but they’re going to have to fight traffic to get back in. Their turnaround time is significantly higher. How often are we going to find ourselves with zero ambulances to respond in the city of Laguna Beach?”
Residents hearing the update at the recent council meeting told city leaders they were concerned about those suffering an emergency.
A woman who identified herself as an emergency room nurse for 30 years described for council members an incident in which her son’s best friend experienced shortness of breath just blocks away from the Laguna Beach hospital, but was taken to the Mission Viejo hospital instead and died of cardiac arrest just as they arrived.
“The transport time to get to Mission is 30 minutes, Hoag is 35 minutes and Saddleback is 31 minutes, and that’s just to get there,” she said. “That’s not counting the time you need to extract them from their house. Then to get back into the city.
“There are two ambulances, two emergencies and you’ve got nothing,” she said. “If you have a heart attack, if you have an aneurysm, if you have anything, you have zero help.”
Another man who said he was a doctor rallied the community to step up and say, “This is not something we want.”
And, former Laguna Beach councilmember and mayor Toni Iseman reminded people of why the hospital was founded.
“What we know is the former chief of police was shot, and he died, and we got a hospital,” she said. “We need to think about what we’re doing for the residents. To even consider leaving everyone in Laguna Beach vulnerable, have you looked at the traffic? How far is it to Hoag, Big Mission? It’s our obligation to our community. We have to do everything we can to make sure the hospital stays.”
Councilmembers Bob Whalen and Alex Rounaghi, who are the city’s hospital subcommittee, have been meeting with Teigen and other hospital officials for more than a year and said they will continue to do so. Teigen is also expected to return in the second quarter of the year to update the council as Providence further considers its plans.
Teigen on Friday said the presentation to the council is part of a “thoughtful, multi-year planning process to understand community needs” in which Providence will design a “more responsive, future-focused model” to best serve Laguna Beach residents for years to come.
“Beyond seismic requirements, the current 1959 facility does not reflect the long-term needs of the community — for example, on average, 80% of the hospital’s licensed beds sit unused every day,” he said in an email. “Transitioning away from acute care services will happen over time through thoughtful planning and coordination, to ensure continuity of care for the Laguna Beach community.”