COURT: COUNTY CAN'T CUT BEDS.

Byline: Daily News

A three-judge federal panel of the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday affirmed a lower court's ruling that bars Los Angeles County from cutting 100 beds at County-USC Medical Center and closing Rancho Los Amigos National Rehabilitation Center in Downey.

The county had sought to take the actions because of the Department of Health Services' projected budget deficits of $310 million in 2006-07 and $740 million in 2007-08.

Department spokesman John Wallace said Tuesday county officials now intend to avoid a costly trial by seeking a settlement with the public interest law firms that brought the case.

In their opinion, the Ninth Circuit justices wrote that, since 1994, the county has eliminated 750 hospital beds, a 30 percent reduction, resulting in delays in treatment causing unnecessary deaths.

``As a result, county emergency rooms are overwhelmed, creating what witnesses in this case have called an 'extremely dysfunctional and dangerous patient environment' in which 'people are dying preventable deaths,''' the justices wrote.

``Some patients spend up to 48 hours or more on a gurney in a county emergency room waiting to get a bed, and patients sometimes wait hours or days for necessary emergency surgeries.''