Local News in Brief : Interns Plan Job Action
Physicians in training at three county-run hospitals said Tuesday that they intend today to stop discharging patients and thereby block new admissions in order to protest the pace of contract negotiations with Los Angeles County.
Dr. Mark Segal, representing about 1,500 interns and residents at County-USC Medical Center, Martin Luther King Jr.-Drew Medical Center and Harbor-UCLA Hospital, said the “work action” is intended to force the county to reconsider its decision to contract out the management of medical care at County-USC Medical Center.
Carl Williams, the county’s director of hospitals, said other staff physicians are being asked to speed up discharges in anticipation of the protest. “We will be relying very heavily on our faculty and full-time staff to come in and speed up discharges as the house staff slows them down,” Williams said late Tuesday. “If the house does fill up and we can’t accept more patients, we will be closing the hospital to transfers from private hospitals in town.”
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