L.A. Poison Center Often Forgotten : Medical Facility a ‘Last Resort’ When Help Is Sought

Few give it a thought--until they need it. Then it is vital assistance at the end of a line. Nearly 75,000 people, usually desperate and not knowing where else to turn, telephoned the Los Angeles County Medical Assn.’s Poison Center last year. After being calmed and reassured, callers are told to get further medical attention or to take a few simple first-aid steps.

The largest number of calls concern plant poisonings, followed by miscellaneous drugs, analgesics (aspirin), lotions or oils, then cold preparations. (The logo of the center is a monster in a bottle.) Nine nurses at the Poison Center answer calls 24 hours a day, every day of the year. Although manning the phones for an average of 6,000 calls per month is the major function of the eight staff members at the center, Corrine Ray, administrator for the Poison Information Center, also teaches prevention. Traveling about 43,000 miles a year throughout the five counties--Los Angeles, Ventura, Santa Barbara, Riverside and San Bernardino--served by the Poison Center, Ray speaks to parent and business groups, as well as to nursing and pharmacy students and paramedics.

Speaking to mothers of kindergartners at Unsworth Elementary School in Downey, Ray suggested mothers make a “What is my name?” file box for the ingredients of products or names of plants.

“There is a bush in your neighbor’s yard and at 6:30 on a Friday night, your child decides to eat the berries,” Ray conjectured. She said many panicked people call the center trying to describe the leaves or berries of a plant. She pointed out how much better it would be to take leaves of the plant to a nursery for identification before a little one is tempted, and keep the names in the file box.

Most Likely Victims

Toddlers from 1 to 3 are the most likely victims of poisoning, with boys twice as likely as girls. Ray, a 62-year-old grandmother, tries to get parents to look at things the way a child does. For instance, cough syrups and tablets, a common culprit, come in pretty colors and should be kept out of reach. She suggested mothers mark the level of the contents of the bottle after each use so if taken accidentally, the amount can be determined.

“Unless we know ingredients and amounts, we have to assume the worst,” Ray said. So instead of a simple first-aid procedure, the child may have to undergo major medical procedures.

About one-third of the calls received by the Poison Center are from professionals--doctors, hospitals, emergency rooms, paramedics--and the rest are from the general public. The center also had 2,000 veterinary calls last year and nearly 4,000 suicide-related calls. The busiest time is between 3 and 11 p.m.

Although the center has no program for following up calls, of the thousands of calls last year, they know of five adult deaths--three by suicide--and one child’s death. The 3-year-old boy died from drinking a gun-blueing agent.

The center, the only one in the nation financed by a medical association, gets calls from most of the other states, including 77 last year from Idaho alone, as well as one or two requests for information from Mexico, Canada, England, Japan and Israel.

The center receives no government funding. Since 1980, the Poison Center has been the major community service program of physicians belonging to the medical association. About 85% of the operating budget, $435,000 per year, is donated by doctors and more than 90 hospitals in the area that use the center as a resource for information. The rest, nearly $70,000, is corporate and outside donations.

Although the physicians’ group welcomes assistance from major firms, it wishes to retain the major share of funding for the center.

“If we did nothing but this, that would be a lot. Nothing can match it,” said David Zeitlin, director of communications for the medical association. He said the association has other projects it supports as well, such as a free vaccination program.

Poison Center officials say they could always use more money. Ray does not charge for her extensive mileage. “That’s my contribution,” she said. The center prints and distributes 500,000 brochures and emergency number stickers each year. Although the center serves five counties, there is no 800 number for callers.

Funding of an endowment by foundations and corporations to help expand the services now provided by the center is inching toward its goal of more than $500,000. Gary Steinhauer, the center’s development administrator, is striving to include the public sector in a larger share of support since almost 70% of the calls come from the public. Ray and Steinhauer cited the need for computerization of the facility. With computers, according to Ray, the center could become a resource center for the community, providing information concerning things like environmental hazards.

“What the Poison Center becomes is the first source anybody can call about any problem because we are there 24 hours a day and they (the public) have no other number,” Ray said.

Besides letting people know simple precautions in her speaking engagements, Ray often assures them about needless worries. For instance, while many common plants are classified poisonous because of allergic or toxic reactions, only two local plants--castor beans and the wild tree (bush) tobacco, mistakenly used as poke in a salad or as a vegetable green--are actually fatal, according to Ray.

Another common fear among mothers is vitamin overdose by young children. Unless vitamins contain iron, however, a one-time overdose will not produce adverse side effects, Ray said, though an iron overdose may cause internal bleeding. She said that Pepto-Bismol should be treated with the same caution as an analgesic since it contains an ingredient in the same family as aspirin, and reminded mothers that children are often attracted by its “bubble gum color.”

“We can patch kids up and we can patch puppy dogs up and kitty cats and anybody else we get called about, but there are always those butterflies in our stomach when we wish, ‘Oh, if we just wouldn’t have let that happen,’ ” she said.

The telephone number for the Poison Center is (213) 484-5151.