California Public Health Officials have levied the first $100,000 fine under a new mounting system of punishments for hospitals, which put patients at danger of death or serious damage.

Southwest Healthcare System in Murrieta was imposed with the fine after examiners found out that physicians at its Rancho Springs Medical Center executed caesarean sections on three women in October employing electrical cauterizing tools in a delivery room with severely low humidity, giving birth to conditions, which could have ignited a fire.

Three fines against the hospital, amounting to $225,000, were declared on Tuesday, taking Southwest's total to six, the maximum in the state.

Southwest Healthcare was amongst seven hospitals, four in Southern California, penalized in the most recent round declared by the California Department of Public Health.

However, Southwest Officials released a statement rebuffing the examiners' latest rulings, saying that the low humidity readings were "in all but one instance . . . taken in the early morning hours well before surgeries took place. By the time those surgeries were performed later in the afternoon, the humidity levels had been raised above the requisite levels".

They also argued regarding two other fines in which canvassers had concluded that hospital officials had been unsuccessful to recognize three newborns at danger for a hazardous blood enzyme and did not succeed to follow up with the babies’ families.

Hospital officials said that the babies were examined for bilirubin that can cause jaundice, and that follow-up care was left for the pediatricians attending to them.