1st Urgent Care Medical Facility Proposed for Moorpark

MOORPARK —  In a city without a hospital, a local dentist’s proposal to build an urgent care center in downtown Moorpark has drawn both eager anticipation and caution.

Anticipation because Moorpark has no emergency care facility. Residents injured in accidents face an ambulance ride to either Camarillo, Simi Valley or Thousand Oaks for treatment.

Caution because dentist DeeWayne Jones’ proposed Westgate Plaza would also include retail shops and restaurants, adding to the traffic on already clogged Los Angeles Avenue.

“It would be real nice to have a [medical] center in town,” Councilman John Wozniak said. “What we don’t need to do is create another bottleneck.”

The City Council is scheduled to vote tonight on a zoning change that would allow Jones to build the plaza on Los Angeles Avenue near Liberty Bell Road.

But the vote won’t be the last on the project. If the council agrees to change the zoning from residential to commercial, Jones must still submit detailed designs of the project for city approval.

Jones, who practices dentistry in Santa Paula and lives in Moorpark, said the urgent care center he proposes would meet a serious community need. This growing city of 28,000 has some doctors’ offices but no hospital, meaning that people in need of emergency treatment must go elsewhere.

Until about three years ago, the city did not even have an ambulance stationed within its borders. Although MedTrans Ambulance now keeps a crew based on Moorpark Avenue, accident victims must still be whisked out of town, said Robert Snyder, field operations supervisor.

The company transports clients near Moorpark College to Simi Valley Hospital, those along Tierra Rejada Road go to Columbia Los Robles Hospital, and people in the western end of town are driven to St. John’s Pleasant Valley Hospital.

Since state law demands that ambulance companies take badly injured people only to emergency rooms, the proposed urgent care facility would not be able to treat many accident victims, Jones and Snyder say. But the dentist said the center could still help save lives.

“Sometimes you might be in a life-threatening situation, and this facility is a minute or two away,” he said. “You can go there and get stabilized, and then get transported to an emergency room.”

More often, the center would give Moorpark residents a place to receive such treatment as physical therapy, Jones said.

No health care provider has yet agreed to organize and run the center, but Jones said he hoped to have an agreement ready soon, possibly within three weeks.

The complex would also include office space and one or two restaurants, possibly equipped with drive-through windows, fronting Los Angeles Avenue.

Traffic problems that could stem from those restaurants concern some council members.

A traffic study found that the project could add a significant number of cars to Los Angeles Avenue during peak travel times, possibly causing problems at the road’s intersections with Moorpark Avenue and Tierra Rejada Road. To ease the impact, the study recommended changing the lanes and traffic light patterns at both intersections.

“We just need to be cognizant of the concerns about traffic,” Wozniak said.