LAYOFFS IN HEALTH CARE ANNOUNCED.

Byline: Troy Anderson Staff Writer

Los Angeles County health officials plan to send out pink slips Monday to about 130 employees, including 40 doctors, as patients face long lines and overcrowded conditions at hospitals and clinics, officials said Thursday.

In addition, Health Department spokesman John Wallace said 110 employees will be demoted and 500 will be transferred to other jobs. The department has eliminated 860 positions, some of them vacant.

The layoffs include two doctors at High Desert Hospital in Lancaster, which is scheduled to be converted to an outpatient clinic on June 30. Health workers at Olive View-UCLA Medical Center in Sylmar and other facilities throughout the county may also be laid off, demoted or transferred.

A second round of layoffs, demotions and transfers will occur in the fall, depending on the county's financial picture at the time, Wallace said.

Meanwhile, the Union of American Physicians and Dentists, which represents 813 county doctors and dentists, said it intends to file suit today to stop the layoff or release of nearly 200 of the county's 1,300 permanent and temporary doctors and dentists.

``These cuts will be devastating,'' said Dr. Robert Weinmann, union president. ``These cuts will reduce services at facilities throughout the county.''

The union's lawsuit is based on the county's failure to abide by the Beilenson Act, a state law requiring public notice before reducing health care services to the indigent. No notice has been provided, and layoff notices are set to go out Monday, said union regional administrator Joe Bader.

``It will be a billiard ball cascade at facilities all over the county,'' Bader said. ``The ones with permanent status will bump other people.''

Wallace said the department doesn't expect the layoffs, demotions and transfers to affect service, but Bader disputed that claim.

``If more cuts are made, then there will be longer waiting times, patients will have to try to go to other hospitals while the indigent can only go to county hospitals,'' Bader said. ``It's going to be a disaster.''

The job actions come as a federal judge has barred the county from closing Rancho Los Amigos National Rehabilitation Center in Downey and cutting 100 beds at County-USC Medical Center. The county hoped to make those cuts to close an anticipated $1 billion budget deficit by 2007-08.