CANDIDATES GIVE KING-DREW SUGGESTIONS.Byline: BRENT HOPKINS Staff Writer With election season heating up, politicians offered their ideas Monday to keep open South L.A.'s troubled Martin Luther King-Drew Medical Center, one day before county officials present their own plans. The center, running out of money and with its name regularly dragged through the mud, has become the cause of choice this election season. As activists delivered petitions demanding that the center remain open as a public facility, politicians scrambled to voice their support. ``Patient health and safety comes first,'' Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger Arnold Alois Schwarzenegger (German pronunciation (IPA): [ˈaɐ̯nɔlt ˈaloɪ̯s ˈʃvaɐ̯ʦənˌʔɛɡɐ] said in a statement. ``I am committed to doing everything possible to help Los Angeles County keep Martin Luther King, Jr.-Charles R. Drew Medical Center's doors open, so the hospital can continue providing essential services, that meet health and safety standards, to the community.'' His gubernatorial opponent, state Treasurer Phil Angelides, was expected to hold an evening community meeting with U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Los Angeles, to present their recommendations. The troubled hospital, built in the aftermath of the Watts Riots to serve a largely ignored African-American population, has been in dire straits for years. On Sept. 22, the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), previously known as the Health Care Financing Administration (HCFA), is a federal agency within the United States Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) that administers the Medicare program and informed the county that it failed a key inspection, meaning the potential withdrawal of $200 million in federal funds Federal Funds Funds deposited to regional Federal Reserve Banks by commercial banks, including funds in excess of reserve requirements. Notes: These non-interest bearing deposits are lent out at the Fed funds rate to other banks unable to meet overnight reserve . Today, the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services The Los Angeles County Department of Health Services (DHS) in Los Angeles County's department providing public and personal health services to the over 10 million residents in the County. will present options to keep the center alive. The agency provided a draft summary of its presentation Monday, encouraging the Board of Supervisors to authorize its director to engage Harbor-UCLA Medical Center Harbor-UCLA Medical Center is a hospital located within the city of Torrance, California, USA. The hospital was founded in 1946, and is funded by Los Angeles County Harbor-UCLA serves as the Level I Trauma Center for the South Bay area. to manage King-Drew. It will also recommend the development of a plan to handle reassignment of current staffers to other facilities that ``mitigates the negative impact on current DHS DHS Department of Homeland Security (USA) DHS Department of Human Services DHS Department of Health Services DHS Demographic and Health Surveys DHS Dirhams (Morocco national currency) facilities or services.'' ``Hospital services at the MLK MLK Martin Luther King MLK Milk MLK Medialess License Kit site would be simplified to basic medical-surgical and intensive care. A basic emergency department, with physicians on duty 24 hours a day, would be maintained,'' Department of Health Services Department of Health Services may refer to:
The hospital has about 200 beds and a full-time staff of 2,238 that serves about 178,000 patients annually -- 60 percent of whom are uninsured. About $200 million of its $380 million annual budget comes from federal funding. If the hospital can't be saved, the shock will resonate far beyond South Los Angeles South Los Angeles is the official name for a large geographic and cultural area lying to the southwest and southeast of downtown Los Angeles, California. The area was formerly called South Central Los Angeles, and is still sometimes called South Central. . The patient load would be hard to absorb into the region's thinly stretched health care system. ``The immediate effect would be felt by the surrounding hospitals, but the ripple effect ripple effect Epidemiology See Signal event. would reach all the way to the San Fernando Valley San Fernando Valley Valley, southern California, U.S. Northwest of central Los Angeles, the valley is bounded by the San Gabriel, Santa Susana, and Santa Monica mountains and the Simi Hills. ,'' said Jim Lott, executive vice president of the Hospital Association of Southern California. ``As you alter boundaries and change ambulance traffic, you affect everyone. It just pushes things even further out.'' In the news in recent years for allegations of impropriety or threatened closure, King-Drew has transcended its status as a care-giving institution. As private hospitals shut down throughout the region, the embattled center has been able to weather storms that sent others to an early closure. ``King is more than just a hospital,'' said commentator and activist Earl Ofari Hutchinson, who advocates reforming King and keeping it public. ``Hospitals come and go, they've been closed before, but this is different. It's a symbol to people.'' To proponents, it symbolizes a vital community service imperiled by racism and neglect. To opponents, it symbolizes county bureaucracy at its worst, a drain of taxpayer dollars on a failed enterprise. Supervisor Yvonne B. Burke, who represents the Willowbrook area near King-Drew, said she'd like to see the board adopt the recommendations provided by the county. Schwarzenegger also has signaled his support for a similar plan, though the governor did not specify which hospital should become King's partner. ``I'm optimistic, but I can't say we'd provide all the same services,'' Burke said. ``To me, if we can save the core services and the emergency room, it would still be necessary for the community.'' Staff Writer Troy Anderson and wire services contributed to this report. brent.hopkins(at)dailynews.com (818) 713-3738 |
|
||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion