Posted on 11/17/2004 10:01:02 AM PST by NormsRevenge
LOS ANGELES (AP) - A day after hundreds of protesters objected to closing the trauma center at Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center, the county released findings that treatment at the center is "poor to marginal."
The Los Angeles County Department of Health Services, which runs King/Drew, released a one-page executive summary Tuesday that described the findings by two trauma experts. A full report is due in about two weeks. The timing of the findings was questioned by some supporters of the trauma center, which serves a poor stretch of South Los Angeles and serves victims of gunshot wounds, stabbings and car accidents.
On Monday, the county Board of Supervisors held a hearing in which more than 90 speakers objected to their proposal to close the trauma unit, the second busiest in the county. Nearly 1,000 people protested the proposal.
"It wasn't disclosed yesterday when we were there all day," said Adrian Dove, chairman of the California Congress of Racial Equality, a civil rights group. "It's troubling timing."
In a letter dated Monday, Drs. Robert Coscia and Gill Cryer said King/Drew's trauma center suffered from the same problems as the hospital as a whole, including a shortage of nurses and intensive-care beds, inadequate documentation, and a flawed method of correcting medical problems.
Cryer is the head of trauma at UCLA Medical Center and Coscia has served as the chairman of the American College of Surgeons' panel that reviews the quality of trauma centers nationwide. They will receive less than $10,000 from the county for their research.
The county's health director, Dr. Thomas Garthwaite, said he asked for the latest review last month because hospital supporters argued that King/Drew had one of the best trauma programs in the nation.
Sounds like a community is about to lose a vital, if imperfect, service.
This place is SO bad, gang members get tattoos asking not to be taking to King-Drew.
FRom a protest thread yesterday.
Hundreds rally to keep L.A. hospital open
excerpt from AP article..
The hospital has been threatened with loss of its national accreditation and $200 million in federal funding because of numerous problems. In the past three years, the county has settled four lawsuits brought by patients who had medical objects left inside them after surgery; six deaths have been blamed on poor nursing.
Je$$e and MaXine were there protesting, but I wonder where they get their kidz medical treatment?
No, I don't. ;-)
The ER is a big money-loser and a huge liability sink. I've been on these boards for years telling people that a hospital can simply shut down its ER if it chooses to do so, and the boards in your town are thinking the same thing. Boards everywhere are thinking about it. I fear that once a critical mass is reached, there will be a domino and we'll end up with towns full of hospitals who will not accept ambulances. Honest, it can happen.
A trauma center is a very delicate and chaotic doorway into the rest of the hospital. The patients go in this doorway, and are funneled into wherever their symptons lead. Have you also noticed that at many hospitals, almost all surgical and medical admissions make their way through the ER, even when not emergencies? Some hospitals are designing new doorways that will only admit the non-emergent. When that happens, the pressure is on financially to shut down the ER completely. Let the hospital down the road take that car wreck full of uninsured. Or grandma's stroke. Or the kid who breaks his arm on the school playground.
Ah.....the poverty pimps. One thing about it, so long as 75% of all black babies are born & raised without their fathers, there'll be no shortage of impoverished Black folks to pimp for. Maxine & Jessuh's job is secure. The only pot 'o gold at the end of that Rainbow is in Jessuh's bank account.
Quite a number of trauma centers/ERs have closed already in the SoCal area, and we have a local trauma center/hospital in downtown SanJose that is shutting down very soon as well.
I hear ya, where do consumers of emergency services go now and how does that impact others in those areas now deluged?
Stay tuned.. It won't get better, that is a sure bet.
I quit the L.A. Co. Sheriff's dept. in 1981. Way back then we referred to it as Killer King hospital. A friend of mine was ambushed on Christmas Eve by a group of 3 gangbanger/ex-cons. One of the bad guys had a bullet bounce off his skull, and took another in the gut.
The E.R. doctor sewed up the laceration in his skull while he bled out from the other wound. We thought it was excellent medical treatment as it saved a ton of court costs and maintanence in prison. The doctor didn't notice the guy was gut shot.
However we all threatened each other with coming back to haunt our partners if they EVER took us there for treatment.
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