Dozens of community members, nurses and Glendale residents met Saturday, Feb. 20 to learn more about the Glendale Health Center and Los Angeles County Supervisor Mike Antonovich’s proposal to privatize the clinic.
Forum participants learned about the diminishing access to health care in the Glendale area and the unique care Glendale Health Center staff provides its more than 3,500 patients.
SEIU 721 President Bob Schoonover told the Glendale News Press: “The place is unique. It may not have been planned that way, but it’s something to be proud of and not something to get rid of.”
Antonovich directed the County of Los Angeles Department of Health Services to assess the viability of privatizing Glendale Health Center, a small county-run clinic in the Fifth Supervisorial District, in 2008. But since then county staff has kept the public and clinic employees in the dark about plans that could curtail health services for thousands.
“If the Supervisor would come to the clinic for one day and talk to the patients he would know how important this facility is.”
Marina Manukian, a LVN at Glendale Health Center, pictured with Kyung Bak, a registered nurse at the clinic (right)
“The County has done nothing to inform our community. Our No. 1 focus is to get the information out there from all sides, but there’s definitely a concern that privatization would hurt people’s access to health care.”
Serouj Aprahamian, the Executive Director of the Armenian Youth Federation