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Several other services including employee salaries have been cut and as of Tuesday there were only 32 patients in the hospital.

Nursing supervisor Martha Iwaihara said, "Most of us are very sad. We’ve been here a long time. Most of us are sad seeing what the outcome of the hospital might be."

The West Contra Costa Healthcare District, a public agency, operates the hospital, serving an area of about 250,000 residents. Regular monthly losses of $1 million each month has mainly resulted because most of the patients either have no insurance or are underinsured.

One of the hospital’s directors admitted to county supervisors on Tuesday that administrators waited too long to impose some cuts that might have saved the facility.

Nancy Casazza said, "We were operating under the assumption that we could keep all the services at that hospital. In retrospect, we should have started downsizing a long time ago."

According to Contra Costa Health Services, Doctors Medical Center received an average of 22 ambulance transports per day that have now been rerouted to other hospitals.

Health experts have predicted a shortage of intensive care beds in area hospitals as soon as flu season hits, if Doctors Medical Center closes and a shortage of beds in the event of a large-scale disaster.

Doctors Medical Center’s board of directors also voted last week for the closure of the hospital’s Pinole campus immediately as well as the hospital’s substance abuse program, known as New Beginnings, and its obstetrics unit.

According to Hernandez the emergency room, which is still accepting walk-in patients, is the largest financial drain on the hospital because an estimated 30 percent of emergency room patients are uninsured. A large number of patients who are insured have Medi-Cal, which pays much lower reimbursements to the hospital than private insurance pays.

“The combination o
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