SAN DIEGO — The County of San Diego and Tri-City Medical Center have reached an agreement in principal on the eve of the California Joint Committee on Legislative Audits’ hearing about Tri-City.
The agreement will bring Tri-City’s inpatient psychiatric beds back online and create a shared financial commitment between the County and Tri-City while providing increased behavioral health care for people in North County. The Tri-City beds have been offline since October 2018.
Supervisor Nathan Fletcher and Assembly member Tasha Boerner Horvath released the following joint statement about the agreement and the suspension of the planned state audit request concerning Tri-City:
“We are pleased that an agreement has been reached between the County of San Diego and Tri-City Medical Center to restore inpatient psychiatric services on their campus. This agreement represents a shared commitment between both parties and we applaud the County of San Diego and Tri-City for working together to find common ground and address the needs of the people of San Diego County.
“From the beginning, the goal in introducing an audit request was to identify the root causes for the suspension of these behavioral health and crisis stabilization units, in the hopes of discovering a way to help restore these much needed facilities. Given that we now have a pathway forward that will bring these beds back online, we are suspending our request for a state audit of Tri-City and have pulled the item off the agenda for tomorrow’s hearing of the Joint Legislative Audit Committee.
“While both the County Board of Supervisors and the Tri-City Healthcare District Board of Directors must approve the agreement, we applaud all those involved for proposing a balanced solution. While there is still a lot of work left to do in order to build a regional, integrated, coordinated and effective behavioral health care system in San Diego, this action represents a step forward.”
