A press conference was held Thursday morning to update the situation at El Centro Regional Medical Center.

Tomas Oliva, Chairman of the hospital Board of Trustees, Mayor Martha Cardenas-Singh, and CEO Scott Phillips spoke to address issues at the El Centro hospital. Oliva said that he wanted to assure the Valley that the hospital is open and ready to serve. He went on to assure hospital staff that the Board and the City Council are working to make sure that their jobs are safe. He said employees should not have to worry about their job.

Chief Executive Office Scott Phillips said that he was brought in to assess the financial condition and found that the El Centro hospital had lost a great deal of money over the past several years, $20 million in fiscal year 2021-22 and over $19 million in the first 6 months of this fiscal year. The money issues stemmed from the COVID-19 pandemic and the increase in overhead from having to contract registry nurses. An expense that is 3 to 5 times higher than staff nurses. Phillips said that steps had to be taken to lower expenses due to the unsustainable losses.

Mayor Cardenas-Singh said that the hospital is not for sale at this time, and they have received no offers to buy the facility. Both Oliva and Cardenas-Singh said that weekly updates on the hospital's financial condition would be posted on the hospital's social media sites. 

Oliva also mentioned that the El Centro hospital has rescinded the letter terminating the Base Station status of ECRMC and will meet with Imperial County to work to have another entity cover the approximately $250,000 a year that ECRM is paying for the Base Station coverage since it is a benefit for all of Imperial County mandated by the State of California.