Lack of Evidence : Burbank Decides Not to Prosecute Rebuked Hospital

The City of Burbank will not file criminal charges against Burbank Community Hospital for its reported refusal to treat an injured transient in August, the city attorney’s office announced Friday.

Evidence of criminal wrongdoing by the hospital or its employees is insufficient, and the city does not believe it can prove that the transient, Robert Parks, was near death when the hospital turned him away, Burbank City Atty. Douglas Holland said.

“The evidence that we have does not indicate clearly . . . that the individual was in a life-threatening situation,” Holland said. There were “inconsistencies in the medical evidence” concerning Parks’ condition at the time, he said, declining to elaborate.

The incident involving Parks, 56, triggered an investigation of Burbank Community by Los Angeles County health officials, who reported finding mismanagement and a failure by administrators and doctors to ensure that the facility was providing quality health care.

22 Deficiencies Cited

The county Department of Health Services is expected to decide next week whether to formally accept the hospital’s plan to correct 22 deficiencies cited last month in the county’s investigation.

A day after Burbank Community had treated Parks for lice and released him, the transient was found collapsed on the ground about 200 feet south of the hospital. Burbank police and county investigators reported that Parks, who was covered with insects, was suffering from malnutrition, dehydration, anemia and alcoholic withdrawal. But the hospital refused to readmit Parks. Officials there said he had already been cared for, the investigators said.

“He had medical needs, but whether these were of a life-threatening nature, I wouldn’t characterize it as life threatening,” said Robert Karp, program manager for the county department’s health facilities division.

In a prepared statement, Holland did not state what criminal charges the city had been considering against Burbank Community. However, the statement added that “by declining to prosecute, we are not condoning the conduct of the hospital or its employees” in the Parks case.

Jurral Rhee, hospital administrator, asserted Friday that his staff did not refuse to readmit Parks, who he said was not brought to the emergency room after he was found on the street. “We don’t go out as an ambulance chaser and bring them in,” Rhee said.

Rhee said he was ambivalent about the city’s decision not to prosecute the hospital. Administrators are relieved at not having to face a criminal case, but would have relished a chance to tell their side of the story, he said.

The county health department earlier this month suggested taking steps to shut the hospital if it did not submit a plan to correct its problems. But officials later said they were pleased with the hospital’s preliminary plan and lifted a three-week ban on paramedics taking patients there.

Investigators also examined at least four other cases where indigent patients either died at the hospital, were denied treatment or needed hospital care shortly after doctors released them. Holland would not comment on those cases, which he said were not part of the city’s criminal investigation of the Parks case.