In fire aftermath, Paradise hospital workers struggle
CHICO, Butte County — For the last decade, when Lisa Martens, Nicole Awe and Leslie Timm went to work at the surgical unit of Adventist Health Feather River Hospital, they felt like the hospital in the town of Paradise was their second home.
The three were colleagues — Martens and Awe are nurses and Timm is a unit secretary and nursing student — until the Camp Fire destroyed much of the hospital and most of the town. But years of going to each others’ weddings, baby showers, movie nights and “friendsgiving” dinners brought them closer than most co-workers. Now, they are sharing another pivotal life event: moving forward from the deadliest and most destructive fire in California history.
“It’s hard when you work at
a rural facility and you get to know everyone,” Martens said. “It’s a joy. It’s your other family. It’s hard to think about going anywhere else.”
The Camp Fire, which tore through Paradise on Nov. 8, killing at least 85 people and destroying nearly 14,000 homes, is also forcing Feather River — the town’s only hospital and largest employer — to grapple with how and where to rebuild, and how to put people like Martens, Awe and Timm back to work.
What the future looks like for Feather River employees — and the town many of them called home — will depend, at least in part, on the decisions hospital leaders make in coming months.
“They’re the biggest employer, or were, so it’s critical we have a hospital, not only for the community to have a hospital, but also for the technical jobs it provides,” said Michael Zuccolillo, a member of Paradise’s Town Council. “Skilled labor, doctors, nurses — that’s an attraction for the town’s economy. It’s people to live here, eat here, buy groceries here.”
The 100-bed hospital, which had a 24-hour emergency department, was severely damaged and services will not be restored until 2020 at the earliest, hospital executives told employees last week. Adventist Health, the nonprofit health system that operates Feather River and 18 other medical centers in the western United States, has committed to continuing medical services in Butte County, though it’s unclear if it will be in Paradise.
That uncertainty leaves about 1,000 employees wondering how they will make a living after Feb. 5, the date through which Adventist has agreed to pay all employees’ full salaries. Health benefits will be extended through May.
What kinds of services Adventist will provide depends greatly on the demographics of the population that returns to Paradise and neighboring Magalia.
“We don’t have it all figured out yet,” Adventist Health CEO Scott Reiner told employees at a town hall meeting in a Chico church last week. “But every day we’re getting close to understanding what to do next. This is a long journey, and it will be for all of us.”
Putting people back to work in a community that has since scattered, many still without homes, is challenging. Some workers have applied to work at other Adventist facilities in the region, like Rideout Health in Marysville, 45 miles south of Paradise, while others are already moving out of state after struggling to find housing in the area. Many are bracing for impending unemployment.
The fire knocked out a third of the region’s health care system, measured by emergency department capacity, urgent care clinics, skilled nursing beds, hospital service capacity and displacement of health care workers, said Christina Chavira, spokeswoman for the nearby Enloe Medical Center in Chico. Enloe has begun absorbing some Feather River employees, offering jobs to about 55 people in nursing, patient registration, pharmacy, finance and information services, Chavira said. Most are set to begin in January.
“But because there’s so many of us, there’s not going to be enough jobs for all of us,” said Martens, the surgical nurse. Martens lives in Chico and did not have to evacuate.
It’s too early to tell what Paradise will eventually look like, and difficult to assess just yet the economic impact of the hospital’s shutdown or potential restoration. But the sudden and unexpected suspension of a major business that employs many of the town’s residents comes with its own web of complications.
Workers want to know what they should put on their application for unemployment benefits as their reason for not working; whether they can cash out accrued paid-time-off hours; whether longtime employees would be prioritized for hiring if the hospital reopens; and how to get a paper copy of licensing documents that lab workers need in order to find a new job. Some want to know if they can pick up belongings they left in their work lockers.
Adventist is making some progress. It plans to reopen its largest clinic, on Skyway Road in Paradise, in the coming weeks, which would be one of the first businesses to return after the fire. Executives said some of the $6.5 million it has raised since the fire will go toward helping employees relocate. The company has matched every employee with a caseworker to help place them at another Adventist location if possible, and is offering counseling and financial advice.
“We will help every one of you find a job,” Adventist Health President Bill Wing said to applause from hundreds of employees who’d gathered in the Chico church to hear from hospital management. But some can’t wait. Hillary McDaniel, who worked for three years at the call center at Feather River, has already moved with her husband and 5-year-old son to Oregon, where they found an RV park offering one month of free housing to Camp Fire victims. The family lost their home in the fire, and it’s been a struggle to find replacement housing. They may not return to Paradise. McDaniel’s father also lost his home, and is trying to relocate to Roseville, outside Sacramento.
“You can’t work somewhere if you can’t live there, but you can’t live somewhere if you can’t work there,” McDaniel said, a day before she made the drive up to Oregon. “If I don’t have a home or job here, there’s no option to stay here ... I feel pretty helpless.”
If more displaced residents similarly relocate, Paradise could lose a critical mass of residents who make up both the hospital’s workforce and its patients. The hospital was known for joint replacement procedures for seniors, but much of the community’s older population may move away, forcing the hospital to retool its services, said Zuccollilo, the Paradise town councilman.
“A lot of these seniors are going to relocate, they’re not going to wait 10 years” to rebuild, he said. “What does that mean for the hospital? I don’t know.”
Darrel Wilken, a nurse in the intensive care unit at Feather River, accepted a similar job at Adventist Health in St. Helena, and is preparing to move and start in January. Wilken, who lives in Chico, said he didn’t want to leave the area, but felt he had to in order to keep working as an ICU nurse.
“I’m fortunate, but it’s challenging,” he said. “I want to stay here, I want to remain with my coworkers. We were all close.”
Timm, the unit secretary, is determined to rebuild the Paradise home she and her husband lost in the Camp Fire. She is on track to finish nursing school at the end of 2019, and hopes that by the time she graduates, Adventist will have reopened the hospital and she’ll be able to work there.
In the meantime, she and her friends are struggling to wrap their minds around what has been lost.
“It still doesn’t seem real,” Timm said.
“None of us are used to having this much time,” Martens said. “We’re used to running around for 12 hours.”
“It’s hard to get closure,” Awe said.
Timm has yet to see her house since it burned down, but her husband has been by it. He’s told her that their rose bush is still standing. Catherine Ho is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: cho@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @Cat_Ho