Riverside County supervisors agreed Tuesday to the terms of an expanded loan for bankrupt Palo Verde Hospital in Blythe, following the Executive Office’s decision to pledge another $3.4 million to keep open the only emergency room for over 70 miles.
In a 4-0 vote without comment and Supervisor Chuck Washington absent, the Board of Supervisors formally approved county Chief Executive Officer Jeff Van Wagenen’s decision on Feb. 24 to commit a $3.44 million payment from the county’s General Fund to the California Department of Health Care Services on behalf of the Palo Verde Healthcare District.
“What we are experiencing in real time is truthful and genuine leadership at different levels of government, stemming from policymakers, staff and the community of Blythe,” Supervisor V. Manuel Perez, whose district includes Blythe, said in a statement. “Proudly, the Board of Supervisors saw the struggles of the past as an opportunity to advance and transform the hospital for the betterment of those being served in Blythe. What’s being accomplished is unprecedented, and the actions taken today set a clear path forward.”
Van Wagenen began distributing the emergency funding on his own authority last week while the board was not in session. The county funds covered the hospital’s obligation to the California Voluntary Rate Range Program, Executive Office spokeswoman Brooke Federico said.
The “intergovernmental transfer” payment, which Van Wagenen did not point to as a pressing concern during the board’s Feb. 10 meeting, has enabled the district to tap into taxpayer-backed credit to support hospital operations.
“As a result of the county’s action, the Palo Verde Healthcare District has already received approximately $8.9 million in program funds, with the remaining expected in the coming days,” Federico said in a statement Friday. “Due to strict State deadlines associated with the Medi-Cal program, immediate action was required to preserve the District’s eligibility for funding” and could not wait for county supervisors’ next scheduled meeting, which was Tuesday.
A “strike team” previously authorized by the board and composed of medical professionals from the Riverside University Health System has been on-site at the hospital since Feb. 23. The RUHS team aims to stabilize the hospital’s emergency clinic and was added to a $1 million stabilization loan that the board previously OK’d for the insolvent facility.
“The approval of the Management Services Agreement is an extremely important step forward for Palo Verde Hospital and our community,” Carmela Garnica, president of the Palo Verde Healthcare District Board of Directors, said in a statement. “Our Board, hospital staff and expert consultants have worked tirelessly to preserve local health care services. We are grateful to Riverside University Health System and CEO Jennifer Cruikshank and her team for stepping in with the expertise needed to stabilize operations during this 180-day period.”
County supervisors also have been asked to fill two vacancies on the PVHD Board, which have prevented the a necessary quorum to vote on pending actions, according to Garnica.
“In the interest of restoring a fully functioning five-member board, I respectfully request that the county … complete the appointment process for the two vacant seats,” she wrote in a letter to Perez.
Officials expected the appointments to be announced soon. A seat vacated in November 2025 will move to the November 2026 general election and for the seat vacated in January 2026, nominations will be evaluated by Perez, with a recommendation brought forward for consideration and approval by county supervisors at a future meeting.
According to an agreement for management services that the Board of Supervisors also approved Tuesday, RUHS staff can now implement processes related to the 180-day plan for strike team support, with the goal of maintaining emergency operations at the hospital.
If no emergency services were available at the Blythe facility, the area’s roughly 20,000 residents would lose access to “timely treatment for life-threatening conditions where minutes matter,” according to a county statement in January. The closest option for emergency health care is over 70 miles away at facilities in Arizona and the Coachella Valley.
The financial agreement between the county and hospital specifies that the county will have top priority status among the PVHD’s creditors and will not be responsible for the hospital’s debts.
At the end of September, the PVHD board voted to seek federal Chapter 9 bankruptcy protection while efforts were made to stanch ongoing financial losses.
Administrators said the hospital had been struggling to remain afloat since the start of the current decade, with revenue streams withering while patient loads remained unchanged.
In 2023 The California Health Facilities Financing Authority $8.5 million from the Distressed Hospital Program in 2023, but PVHD administrators said that was a short-term remedy. A noteworthy problem was the inability to recruit a chief financial officer willing to put forth the effort to find solutions to the financial woes — the district had four CFOs in 18 months.
Currently only the emergency room remains open, all other hospital departments have shut down.
The county’s original $1 million loan will pay for staff salaries and benefits, pharmaceuticals, equipment purchases, utilities, billing operations and legal costs from Chapter 9 bankruptcy proceedings, officials said. That followed a $330,000 bridge loan to the hospital in January from the city of Blythe.
