Fallbrook Regional Health District purchasing land

District enters into escrow on property connecting the vision of ‘Health Under One Roof’

FALLBROOK – The Fallbrook Regional Health District (FRHD) officially entered into escrow Dec. 22 to purchase land for a wellness center on East Mission Road near Stage Coach Lane. The district board held a special meeting to discuss the purchase of land in the district on Dec. 1.

“We’re excited at the prospect to once again provide direct health services, screenings and preventative health care under one roof,” said Bobbi Palmer, chief executive officer of the FRHD. “This new facility will put into motion the district’s mission of preventing the preventable through our 'Exercise is Medicine' and 'Food is Medicine' initiatives.”

As the project gets underway, the FRHD will be discussing plans and goals with community members, schools, businesses and elected leaders. An ad-hoc Fallbrook Wellness Advisory Committee is forming to provide community oversight for the effort. Interested committee members may get more information by calling the district office at (760) 731-9187.

Purchase of the 4.6-acre campus for the future wellness center is made possible following the October 2017 sale of the former Fallbrook Hospital to private for-profit Crestwood Behavioral Health Inc. The $4.5 million sale has allowed Crestwood to begin transforming the vacant 50-year-old building at 624 East Elder into the Fallbrook Healing Center to deliver behavioral medicine and rehabilitation therapy later this year.

The former Fallbrook Hospital closed in November 2014 after soliciting proposals from more than 10 health systems in the region. Several more proposals and offers fell through in the years following as the Fallbrook Regional Health District spent about $200,000 a year on basic maintenance and security of the building.

The Fallbrook Hospital was last managed under a 30-year lease agreement by Tennessee-based Community Health Systems. The company closed the hospital’s labor and delivery department in September 2014 and announced it planned to shutter emergency and intensive care departments in November of that year. CHS reported to shareholders it lost nearly $6 million operating Fallbrook Hospital in 2013 alone.

The Fallbrook Regional Health District is a special district covering affordable community health needs for the low- and fixed-income residents of Bonsall, De Luz, Fallbrook and Rainbow. The roughly $1.6 million collected in voter-approved taxes supports more than $850,000 annually in full spectrum community health services addressing top health disparities, including behavioral health, cancer, diabetes, heart disease and stroke.