Long Beach hospital, which sits on active quake fault line, to close

LONG BEACH, Calif. (KABC) -- A Long Beach hospital is set to shut down later this year, because the nearly century-old building sits on an active earthquake fault line.

The Community Medical Center Long Beach, located on Termino Avenue near Pacific Coast Highway, will shut down in the next few months.

The hospital's owner, MemorialCare Health System, made the announcement on Monday, saying that a seismic study had found an active fault under the campus, and it would not be able to meet seismic compliance requirements as of June 30, 2019, when the hospital would have to stop operating.

The news of the active fault led to "increasing departure of staff seeking longer-term opportunities," according to the hospital, prompting officials to submit a 120-day lease termination notice to the city, which owns the land.

John Bishop, CEO of Community Hospital Long Beach, said the decision to close was not an easy one.

"We exhaustively explored all options to continue operations at Community Medical Center as an acute care hospital. This proved not possible since large portions of the facility would have to be demolished, resulting in a small, 94-year-old hospital with no more than 20 acute care beds, which would not allow for viable acute care operations," Bishop said.

The 200-bed hospital was founded in 1924.

City News Service contributed to this report.