Civil grand jury probe adds to scrutiny of troubled King/Drew.

ADD one more ingredient to the alphabet soup of agencies that have been investigating troubled Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center: the Los Angeles County Civil Grand Jury.

A body of 23 citizens with the authority to investigate city and county agencies, the grand jury opened a probe last month of the hospital and the county health department, following a complaint from health care activist Genevieve Clavreul.

A registered nurse who has long questioned the quality of management at the hospital and department, Clavreul said she filed a written complaint Aug. 2 and was called in by the grand jury's health care committee on Aug. 26 and questioned for several hours.

"I was so surprised. Initially I thought I would never hear from them," said Clavreul, a healthcare management consultant.

Clavreul said she then saw those same members questioning individuals at a Sept. 3 meeting of the Legislature's Select Committee on the Status of Health Care Facilities in California. The committee held the meeting at the hospital to get an update on efforts to improve care there.

Clavreul's complaint letter focused on what she claims are broad management failures at the Department of Health Services, starting with Director Dr. Thomas Garthwaite. She claims the ongoing disclosures of poor care at the hospital are only a "sentinel" of this larger problem, and she is pushing for the establishment of a health authority to better manage the department.

Among the problems at the Willowbrook hospital, which has been sanctioned by state and federal regulators, are patient deaths from poor care, conflicts of financial interest and staffing shortages that have closed wards.

The grand jury does not have the power to order changes in how the department is managed but every year it publishes a report recommending county supervisors take actions on a variety of problems.

Gordon Trask, the grand jury's counsel, said he was prohibited on commenting on the body's work pending release of its annual report.

Bad News, Good News

it's hard to imagine a hospital closure as good news, but the recent spate of closings in Los Angeles County and elsewhere may boost the chances of Proposition 67, which would raise funding for emergency services.

Last week, administrators at financially troubled San Jose Medical Center announced the hospital would close in December, making it the sixth hospital to either close or end its emergency services this year.

As in the other cases, supporters of the proposition jumped on the announcement, arguing that the closure showed the importance of passing the measure.

"The disease that closed San Jose Medical Center is not cured. It will simply spread to other hospitals and endanger them," said Dr. Jack Lewin, chief executive of the California Medical Association, one of the proposition's chief sponsors.

Proposition 67 would raise $500 million annually for hospitals, physicians and other emergency care providers through a 3 percent surcharge on telephone bills. But it has been struggling in the polls.

Less than 20 percent of voters had even heard of the measure, and of those only 37 percent supported it while 47 opposed it, according to an Aug. 15 Field Poll.

The measure caps the surcharge on residential phone bills to just 50 cents, but the proposition has drawn strong opposition from the telecommunications industry because of a lack of a cap on cellular or small business bills. Also, opponents say there are no requirements that money won't be diverted from emergency services.

"It's $540 million in new taxes with no guarantees it gets spent in any useful or meaningful way," said Todd Harris, a spokesman for the opposition group Stop the Phone Tax.

Other recent planned closures include Northridge Hospital Medical Center's Sherman Way campus in Van Nuys.

Staff reporter Laurence Darmiento can be reached at [phone], ext. 237, or at [e-mail].