Pomona Valley Hospital Medical Center offers gym opportunities

POMONA - Tucked away in the basement of Pomona Valley Hospital Medical Center is a 1,500-square-foot gym that helps people who have recently suffered heart-related problems as well as those for whom years have passed since a life-changing health scare.

The Stead Cardiac and Wellness Gym has treadmills and exercise machines as well as highly-trained personnel available for patients in the center's Cardiac Rehabilitation Program and members of the Stead Cardiac Health and Wellness Program.

"I've gone here for 15 years," Claremont resident Betty Springer said. "All the people here are so nice. We would really miss them if they weren't here."

The Cardiac Rehabilitation Program requires a physician's order, is covered by insurance and is part of therapy that some doctors have patients undergo following a heart attack, stroke or other cardiac problems, said Debbie Keasler, director of cardiac services at the Stead Heart and Vascular Center.

Health-care professionals closely monitor patients in the program as they exercise and work with them to achieve their medical goals. The patients also work with registered dieticians, exercise physiologists and other experts, she said.

The Stead Cardiac Health and Wellness Program includes people who have completed their rehabilitation, but have chosen to continue to have access to the gym by becoming members.

People taking part in the program can direct themselves and could easily join a health club to keep up their regimens. However, they prefer the environment provided by the hospital's gym, said Joseph Baumgaertner, director of the center's Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation Department.

"They're around people who are licensed. Even if it's just the consultation side, they have someone who can answer their questions," Baumgaertner said.

Baumgaertner will oversee the two programs as part of a re-organization.

"The key is they're keeping active and not falling back into bad (health) habits," Keasler said.

The program's participants can have questions answered by physical therapists and exercise physiologists. They also have access to physical therapy facilities at the hospital's satellite facilities in Claremont and Chino Hills, Baumgaertner said.

For a few days in September, the gym was closed due to a reorganization.

The revamped health and wellness program, which is open to the public, has had its yearly fee increased from $480 to $675. The adjustment was needed since one had not been made in several years, Baumgaertner said.

The fee was set following a financial analysis that included calculating estimated memberships under a revamped program and its costs, hospital spokeswoman Kathy Roche said.

The hours for the gym have also been reduced to 6 to 10 a.m. and 3 to 6 p.m. Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays - peak hours for participants.

The schedule change has provided greater opportunities for personnel to work with patients on their doctor's orders, Baumgaertner said.

With the new schedule, personnel will have blocks of time to work with patients recovering from recent cardiac issues. This includes newcomers who need to complete paperwork as they enter the rehabilitation program, Keasler said.

The change was needed "in order to try and mitigate a $500,000 annual loss in revenue" from the gym, Roche said.

Although Springer will have to wake up a little earlier and pay higher fees, she said it is worth it.

Not only is she surrounded by top medical personnel, "the emergency room is up stairs if I should need it," said Springer, who first learned of the gym about 15 years ago after suffering from a heart problem.

Springer said she could go to a gym without affiliation to the hospital, but such places don't have the type of health-care professionals who are available at the hospital's gym.

Claremont resident Reginald Yates said he has been visiting the hospital's gym for 15 years after he had a stroke. Other gyms can be impersonal and so vast "you can get lost in them," said Yates, a retired Los Angeles County Superior Court judge.

Under the reorganized program, he said he plans to split his workout schedule between the hospital's gym and the Claremont facility.

"The staff is great and the people I work out with are great," Yates said.