Hospital Placed Off-Limits for Paramedic Calls

Los Angeles County health officials have ordered paramedics to stop taking patients to Burbank Community Hospital, which is under investigation for allegations of improper and inadequate medical care of indigents.

Officials of the county Department of Health Services declined to specify the reasons behind the abrupt order. But a department spokesman said paramedics will not be allowed to take patients to the hospital until “problems” there are corrected.

“The key here is that the deficiencies are taken care of,” said Richard Inch, chief of special projects for the department’s emergency medical services agency, which oversees procedures for pre-hospital care of patients.

“We’re trying to make sure that everything is well for public safety,” Inch said.

‘Unusual’ Action

Inch called the county action “highly unusual,” adding that he could not recall when a similar order had been issued.

The order was issued late Thursday and was effective immediately. It specified that paramedics are to take patients in need of care to any acute health-care facility other than Burbank Community. St. Joseph Medical Center, also in Burbank, has an emergency room and a trauma-care center.

Burbank Community’s emergency room will remain open for walk-in patients, administrators said.

Hospital administrators denied that shutting down paramedic traffic was because of a finding of inadequate patient care.

‘Handling Paper Work’

Diane Freeman, assistant administrator at Burbank Community, said she had been told by health officials that the deficiencies are related to “the handling of paper work.” She said she had been told that the hospital had been cleared of any wrongdoing.

Ralph Lopez, chief of the health-facilities division of the department, said his agency will soon release results of the investigation into the operation of Burbank Community, a licensed hospital with a 24-hour emergency room.

Investigators were evaluating at least five cases in which indigent patients died at the hospital, were denied help or needed hospitalization soon after doctors there released them.

The probe intensified late last month after Robert Parks, a transient who had been taken to the hospital after police found him covered with lice, was found collapsed on the ground outside the hospital a day after he was admitted.

Parks, who officers said was covered with lice and dried blood, was taken by police to County-USC Medical Center, where he was admitted in serious condition. Doctors at the medical center said Parks was suffering from dehydration, anemia, malnutrition and alcoholic withdrawal.

Following Guidelines

Burbank Community administrators said the hospital was following federal and state guidelines by treating indigents who needed emergency care and releasing them after they were stabilized.

Jurral Rhee, administrator at Burbank Community, called the county action “inappropriate,” blaming it on what he called “slanted” media coverage.

“It’s a bad rap,” Rhee said. “This certainly is not helping the morale of our staff here. I don’t have any information at all why they’re doing this. They said they would mail me the reasons as soon as possible.”

Rhee said an in-house evaluation by Dr. Stanley Toy, in charge of the hospital’s emergency room, and another physician determined that the cases under investigation by the county “were handled in an appropriate manner.”

He said other physicians at Burbank Community are also planning to look into the hospital’s care.

Rhee said he has asked administrators at UCLA Medical Center and Cedars-Sinai Medical Center to conduct independent investigations into the Burbank hospital’s patient care.

He said that, despite the recent controversy, he had noticed no decrease in patients checking into the hospital.

Freeman said the loss of paramedic traffic will affect the hospital financially, but that the loss will not be significant. She said Burbank Community served many Medicare patients, as well as many transients.

“This will be a greater hardship on the community members that will have to travel a farther distance to get medical care,” she said.

She said the hospital is served by paramedics from the Glendale and Burbank fire departments, as well as private paramedics.

Freeman said county officials had informed her that, if the hospital were closed to paramedic traffic, it would not be permanent. “They said that, once we met the discrepancies, they would authorize paramedics to come here again,” she said.

Burbank Fire Capt. Kurt Reynolds said his department was transporting “any really serious patients” to St. Joseph Medical Center anyway. St. Joseph is the area’s only designated trauma-care center.