The Board of Supervisors approved a lease to convert the old Sears building into a facility to treat COVID-19 overflowing patients, but Santa Barbara County never executed the deal.
During the July rise in local cases and hospitalizations, the county saw the vacant store as a potential alternative care location for South Coast patients.
The lease agreement, which was approved by the Board of Supervisors but never executed, outlined a plan to improve the building into a 200-bed health center to care for patients if the county-wide hospital system he was overwhelmed.
The La Cumbre Plaza building at 3845 State Street has been empty since Sears closed in January 2019.
“As for Sears as an alternative place of care, this is not the direction of the state right now,” Van Do-Reynoso told public health officials Tuesday.
“We currently have increased capacity in our hospitals. If we need to have an alternative care site, we would partner and use whatever is available at the SLO alternative care site if needed, and that’s huge. if necessary.
“Right now, our hospitals are very comfortable and prefer that any extension to care for the patient be within its four walls and within its campus. The problem is getting staff.”
Patients in Northern County could be sent to the established (but never used) alternative care location at Cal Poly, the San Luis Obispo campus.
“When last year we pursued Sears as an option, that was a different time and a different space in the pandemic. It is no longer recommended or preferred by community health care providers or the state, as we are given what we know for the treatment of hospitalized patients, ”Do-Reynoso said.
The board of supervisors approved the lease of the property in July, but the county later decided not to execute the deal, Deputy Director of General Services Skip Gray told Noozhawk on Tuesday.
“Once it was determined that the county no longer needed Sears ownership, we ended up without executing the agreement or the lease,” Gray said.
The agreement and letter of intent to lease the property included a “free retention period” until August, he said.
“The county made the decision not to hire the lease on Aug. 28,” Gray said.
The county still has an agreement to use the Best Western hotel at 2220 Bath St. as an alternative care site near Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital, but that has not been activated, Gray said.
Hospital overvoltage plans
Do-Reynoso said hospitals prefer to expand capacity within their own facilities, which they do with overvoltage plans.
Hospitals report that 13 intensive care beds are currently being used for patients with COVID-19. About 64% of county ICU patients have COVID-19.
With 211 COVID-19 hospital patients, there are now more than twice as many as compared to the summer peak that worried officials to the point of looking for alternative care locations.
Cottage Health President and CEO Ron Werft last week described the work Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital has done to convert units into COVID-19 treatment areas and attract staff from other areas of the hospital.
There was a COVID-19 isolation unit operating at Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital for Thanksgiving, and now there are five, including two ICU units, Werft said last week.
One of the ICU surgical units became a unit to care for patients with COVID-19, he added.
The current challenge is to provide more staff than physical beds, according to public health and hospital officials.
“As we look at the growing demand from our hospitals in Santa Barbara, beds will not be the challenge, PPE and ventilators will not be the challenge,” Werft said. “The problem is the staffing of critical staff.
“While right now we have staff beyond what we would normally see, the ability to identify, recruit and expand to this type of demand is very difficult.”
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