More than 40 buildings at 10 hospital campuses in the San Bernardino County, Calif., area are highly collapsible in earthquakes, according to public records data, reports the San Bernardino Sun. For example, Catholic Healthcare West's 237 hospital buildings statewide include 45 (or 19 percent) that are rated as high risk, according to regulators. California mandated that hospital owners fix high-risk buildings by 2008 or face shutdown. However, many hospitals struggled to comply with building fixes, hampered by finances, and the state extended the deadline to 2013, 2015, and 2020 for some hospitals.
"It is the right thing to do, and yet we're trying to contend with an unfunded mandate and the financial realities of the economy," said spokesperson Kathy Roche at Pomona Valley (Calif.) Hospital Medical Center in the article. Article