Fountain Valley-based MemorialCare Health System will cut 194 jobs as part of its planned closure of the San Clemente location of its Saddleback Memorial Medical Center, according to a state filing.
The layoffs are effective May 31, the same date MemorialCare said the hospital will close.
MemorialCare originally intended to continue operating the hospital, which it’s owned since 2005, as an ambulatory healthcare campus without emergency care. It later worked with state lawmakers on a bill that would have allowed emergency care, but the measure failed in January.
San Clemente’s city council a week later voted to rezone the campus, requiring MemorialCare to provide full hospital services—something the nonprofit operator called “restrictive.”
MemorialCare, which also owns Orange Coast Medical Center in Fountain Valley, said daily patient volumes had dropped, “many days in the single digits,” making operation of an acute-care hospital unsustainable.
—Vita Reed
