U.S. Democratic Senator Adam Schiff toured Glenn Medical Center’s mostly silent halls Thursday. He’s working on legislation to reopen the only hospital and emergency room in Glenn County, which has been closed since last fall.
The hospital shut down after the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) stripped it of its title as a Critical Access Hospital. The federal status provided essential funding to the small rural hospital. Without it, Glenn Medical Center couldn’t survive.
Now, residents have to travel at least 30 miles to the nearest emergency rooms in Colusa or Chico. The extra travel time has raised concerns that delayed care could lead to worse outcomes in emergencies or even death.
Here's what to know about Schiff's bill.
Where’s the bill?
The U.S. House of Representatives just passed a spending bill that includes language to give Glenn Medical Center back its federal status as a Critical Access Hospital, Schiff told NSPR on Thursday. From there, he said the hospital would hopefully be able to reopen.
The legislation will be brought up in the Senate next week, Schiff said, where senators have a Jan. 30 deadline to fund the government. If the bill makes it through the Senate, it would then go to President Donald Trump’s desk.
But Schiff said he wasn’t sure how the Senate would approach the bill, including whether it would be taken up in separate votes. The spending legislation is vast and includes funding for all sorts of federal agencies, including the Department of Homeland Security, which Schiff said has become particularly politically-charged recently.
“I would hope they would keep noncontroversial things like this in a noncontroversial bill,” he said.
What does the bill do?
Schiff’s bill is focused on hospitals that were designated as a Critical Access Hospital as of Jan. 1, 2024. It allows those facilities to have their status reinstated if it was lost due to distance requirements. If passed, the designation would be restored through Jan. 1, 2027.
“What we have lost with losing Doug LaMalfa is our Republican champion in the House.”- Adam Schiff, U.S Senator
Who’s behind the bill?
Schiff’s bill stems from legislation that he put forward last October. Around the same time, North State Congressman Doug LaMalfa also wrote his own bill to get Glenn Medical Center reopened.
While the lawmakers had their own bills, the two were working closely together before LaMalfa’s recent death to make sure legislation got across the finish line.
“We got good momentum with bipartisanship,” LaMalfa told NSPR in October about his work with Schiff.
At this week’s hospital tour, Schiff recognized how important the late congressman was to getting to this point.
“What we have lost with losing Doug LaMalfa is our Republican champion in the House,” Schiff said. “And I'm really sad that he's not here and with us and continuing to serve his constituents.”
Will LaMalfa’s death affect the bill?
Schiff said he’s been working with LaMalfa’s staff since the congressman’s death, and that he will continue to do so until the North State gets a new representative, which will be at least five more months.
"It's not something that we just get to turn on once we get our critical access status back."- Amy Micheli, Glenn Medical Center CEO
Gov. Gavin Newsom set the special election for the first congressional district for Aug. 4, but the seat could be decided earlier if a candidate wins a majority of the vote in the June 2 special primary.
When could the hospital reopen?
Even if Schiff’s bill does get signed by the president, it’s unlikely the hospital will be reopening anytime soon.
“It's not something that we just get to turn on once we get our critical access status back,” said Amy Micheli, the CEO of Glenn Medical Center.
One big issue is that the decades-old hospital and its ancient infrastructure would now be subject to modern building regulations.
“If we were to reopen, that means we come up to today’s standards,” Micheli said. “And some of the standards we would not be able to meet are things like the size of a room.”
Expanding the size of the hospital’s old concrete rooms isn't the only thing Glenn Medical Center would have trouble doing. Micheli said they would need to replace its boiler system and rewire the entire building, plus add several bathrooms.
All these reasons have led a lot of hospital leadership to advocate for building an entirely new hospital.
How much would rebuilding the hospital cost?
Around $100 million, Micheli said. And no one knows where that money would come from.
Still, she said Schiff’s bill is a step in the right direction.
“I feel like it's righting a wrong that was done to Glenn Medical Center by taking its critical access status,” Micheli said.
Why did the hospital close?
It all comes down to a three-mile difference that proved costly for the community.
After nearly 25 years as a Critical Access Hospital, regulators determined the Glenn Medical Center was only 32 miles from the nearest hospital in Colusa, falling short of the 35-mile minimum under federal rules to qualify as critical access.
Hospital leaders appealed, arguing federal officials used a rural back road that ambulances don’t use rather than a main route to make the calculation. Still, in August, CMS revoked the hospital’s designation.
