Auditors Fault Top Doctor at Hospital

Los Angeles County’s auditors have found that the top medical officer at Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center allowed illegal payments to a radiologist for hours he slept at the hospital and misled officials looking into other alleged misconduct, according to documents obtained by The Times.

In addition, the chief auditor for the county Department of Health Services has asked the district attorney’s office to investigate whether the medical director, Roger Peeks, received kickbacks for his actions or engaged in “other criminal improprieties,” according to a confidential May 26 letter signed by the auditor, Sharon Ryzak.

Peeks was hired last year to help turn around King/Drew, a public hospital south of Watts that for years has been beset by mismanagement and lapses in patient care.

He denied the allegations against him Thursday.

“I’m surprised. I’m really surprised,” Peeks said when told of the audit’s findings by a reporter. “I don’t think I’ve ever done anything improper. I don’t know where it’s coming from.”

District attorney’s spokeswoman Sandi Gibbons said the office was conducting a preliminary inquiry.

The auditors’ findings drew an exasperated response from two county supervisors.

Supervisor Gloria Molina called for Peeks’ removal.

“I personally have given up on this hospital,” she said. “As much as I’d like to save it -- and I’ve worked very hard to try to save it -- there are people who are being very, very destructive to the rescue plan that we have put in place.”

King/Drew paid $1.3 million from March 2004 to March 2005 to a temporary agency for the services of contract radiologist Harold A Tate. The doctor said he worked an average of 20 hours a day, seven days a week, during one six-month stretch, invoices show.

According to the audit, Peeks brushed aside staff objections and allowed Tate’s agency to be paid $225 an hour for periods when the radiologist slept and took breaks. That was a violation of Tate’s contract and the state Constitution, which bars gifts of public funds, the audit found.

The audit also concluded that Peeks deceived investigators by not telling them that he had provided a private room in the medical residents’ dormitory next to King/Drew for Tate’s use free of charge. That was also an illegal gift of public funds, the audit said.

Tate said he worked all the hours he billed and did nothing wrong.

The audit recommended that Peeks be disciplined. Separately, the county Board of Supervisors last month ordered the health department to take “necessary disciplinary action” against Peeks for “not monitoring and tracking physician work hours accordingly.”

That motion was passed after The Times reported that another doctor, the former head of the hospital’s pediatrics department, continued working at his private practice during hours he was being paid to be at the hospital -- then repeatedly lied about it.

Peeks said Thursday that he was never disciplined.

Dr. Thomas Garthwaite, health department director, said he decided not to discipline Peeks or tell him about the auditors’ findings because the district attorney was investigating. That was the advice of the outside consultants being paid $15 million to run King/Drew, he said.

“We don’t want to taint their investigation,” Garthwaite said of the prosecutors’ office.

Garthwaite acknowledged that the management of physician contracts at King/Drew was “broken.”

“It was probably broken before Peeks got there, and he hasn’t done as well as he could to manage those contracts and follow the letter of the law,” Garthwaite said.

Even so, he added, “I believe I can still trust Roger Peeks.”

Garthwaite’s inaction drew a sharp response from Supervisor Mike Antonovich, who has previously called for the health director’s ouster.

“When this issue was brought to the board’s attention, Garthwaite was directed to take immediate disciplinary action against Dr. Peeks,” Antonovich said in a statement. “The fact that he has ignored the board’s direction makes it very clear that, in addition to cleaning house at King/Drew, it’s time for this board to find a new health director.”

The audit found wrongdoing by other staff members as well.

For instance, the auditors found that some employees “acted in a deceptive manner” by directing the temporary agency to record work in eight-hour increments, instead of 24, so Tate’s lengthy shifts would not be obvious.

The auditors found that “the productivity reflected for Dr. Tate does not support his hours claimed.” The county asked the D.A. to investigate whether the acting chairman of radiology and a now-retired assistant hospital administrator received kickbacks for their approval of Tate’s time sheets, Ryzak’s letter said. Neither could be reached for comment late Thursday.

Tate said the auditors were wrong in saying he didn’t work all the hours for which he billed. In mid-2004, when the hospital’s radiology physician training program was ordered closed, “all the county staff physicians just completely laid down on the job and did absolutely nothing to help me,” he said. “There was nobody [else] left to provide coverage at that hospital.”

The radiologist said he needed a dorm room near the hospital because he could not shower in rooms reserved for doctors at the hospital. “I would just go over [to the dorms] and take a shower and go over to the hospital,” he said.