King/Drew Supporters Blast Hospital’s Critics

Both a consultant’s report on fixing problems at Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center and The Times’ coverage of the facility were criticized Saturday by hospital faculty and community representatives at a public forum in Watts.

Several doctors from the public hospital in nearby Willowbrook said a consultant hired by Los Angeles County to correct problems had spent too little time learning how King/Drew functioned before issuing a report this month that contained about 1,000 recommendations on fixing the hospital.

Others leveled criticism at The Times, saying that the paper did not place enough fault for the hospital’s woes with the county Department of Health Services and that the newspaper placed too much emphasis on cases of poor patient care while ignoring patients who had been saved.

In response to problems found by several hospital inspectors, the county Board of Supervisors awarded a $13.2-million contract to Navigant Consulting last fall to take over day-to-day management of King/Drew.

Supervisors also voted in November to close King/Drew’s trauma center, saying it needed to focus staff attention on fixing the rest of the hospital.

“There’s no need for this international hospital to apologize,” said Dr. Samuel Shacks, who works in the hospital and the affiliated Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science.

“The only thing we have to apologize for is not throwing the rats out of office” at the Department of Health Services, the county agency that operates King/Drew, he added.

Dr. Joanne Williams, an emergency room physician, took exception to a suggestion by Navigant that doctors in her department needed cultural sensitivity training.

She said what is needed instead is more African American staffers.

Another doctor criticized Navigant for recommending that the pediatric intensive care unit be closed, saying it was a vital resource for sick children in the surrounding community.

Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles) said, “We have to correct the record” about The Times’ coverage of patient-care problems at King/Drew.

“The L.A. Times thinks it’s going to get a Pulitzer Prize on our backs,” Waters said. “Part of their trying to get a Pulitzer Prize is they’ve got to see to it that the hospital is closed.”

In December, The Times published a five-part investigative series that found that errors and neglect by King/Drew staff had repeatedly harmed or killed patients.

The paper also reported that when compared with most public hospitals in California, King/Drew is well-funded but money is often wasted.