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State Panel Will Study Hospital Closures

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From Associated Press

Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez announced the creation Friday of a special legislative panel to respond to Los Angeles County’s hospital and emergency room closures.

The Select Committee on the Los Angeles County Health Care Crisis is set to convene in February and will comprise 12 lawmakers, including its chairman, Assemblyman Mark Ridley-Thomas (D-Los Angeles).

“Six hospitals in Los Angeles County shut their doors in 2004 alone,” Nunez (D-Los Angeles) said in a statement. “The insured and uninsured alike will face a real disaster if the healthcare safety net begins to unravel. We must focus on this looming crisis and help make the county’s health care system financially stable.”

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Since the 1980s, 10 of the county’s trauma centers have closed, largely because of financial woes stemming from treating the indigent and uninsured.

The panel will focus on the causes of financial and management problems and take suggestions from healthcare officials. Twenty-eight emergency rooms have closed statewide since 2000. Six were in Los Angeles County, including the 229-bed Robert F. Kennedy Medical Center.

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