Hospital May Reconsider Move to Quit Trauma Net

Daniel Freeman Memorial Hospital might reconsider its decision to withdraw from Los Angeles County’s troubled trauma-care network if health officials come up with $3.6 million and make major changes in the 3-year-old emergency-care system, it was disclosed Tuesday.

In addition to the money, Daniel Freeman officials said they want assurances that crowded county-run hospitals will accept transfers of stabilized indigent trauma patients, plus a realignment of the boundaries of the area the hospital services with trauma care. The boundary realignment would be intended to decrease the number of poor patients served by the trauma center.

The conditions were included in a letter to Supervisor Kenneth Hahn from hospital President Sister Regina Clare. Hahn, recuperating at home from a Jan. 11 stroke, had been released from Daniel Freeman only two days before the hospital announced April 13 that it was pulling out of the 20-hospital trauma-care network.

Indigent Patients

Hospital officials said Daniel Freeman had lost more than $2 million from caring for 1,283 indigent trauma patients last year. The number represented about 55% of the patients treated at the trauma facility.

James D. Barber, Daniel Freeman administrator, stressed in a telephone interview that the letter was not intended to be a negotiating document and was intended as a “personal” note from hospital officials to Hahn.

“In no way was this letter meant to be a position paper for the hospital,” Barber said. “We are not actively negotiating with the county.”

Barber said, however, that if county officials made a proposal addressing some of the conditions outlined to Hahn, “it would be meaningful to us.”

First Word

County health officials said the Daniel Freeman letter, released by Hahn’s office, was the first time the hospital had specified how its withdrawal, effective June 15, might be averted.

“They’ve never made known to us any specific financial demands,” said Virginia Price Hastings, director of the county’s trauma-center program.

Specifically, the hospital told Hahn that in order to reconsider its participation in the network, it would have to be reimbursed $2.4 million a year for indigent-patient hospital care and another $1.2 million for physician fees and medicine.

Hastings said at least one of the conditions--realigning Daniel Freeman’s trauma network service area starting May 1--has already been met.

Daniel Freeman’s announced departure from the trauma network has thrown the future of the once highly touted program into uncertainty. Officials of some of the system’s remaining 19 hospitals have warned that the network could collapse if other facilities also drop out.

Daniel Freeman was the fourth hospital to pull out of the program since it began in December, 1983, and the second in two months.

The trauma-care network was established to guarantee trauma victims--those involved in shootings, stabbings or major auto accidents--an ambulance ride of no more than 20 minutes to an emergency room equipped with specialized equipment and highly trained surgeons.

Telegram Sent

A spokesman for Hahn said the supervisor, after receiving the Daniel Freeman letter, sent telegrams to Sen. Alan Cranston (D-Calif.), Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Los Angeles) and Assemblyman Curtis Tucker (D-Inglewood) with pleas for state and federal funds.

The spokesman said Hahn considers Daniel Freeman’s continued participation in the program vital because of its proximity to Los Angeles International Airport, the Forum, Hollywood Park and the San Diego Freeway.