County Cash May Stave Off Cuts in Emergency Care

Eleven private hospitals in Los Angeles reached a preliminary agreement Tuesday not to curtail emergency room services for another two months in return for $1.25 million from county officials to help offset the cost of treating poor patients.

“Nothing’s been signed yet,” said Robert Gates, county health services director, after meeting privately with the hospital officials. “But I feel good about what’s happened.”

The 11 hospitals are Hollywood-Presbyterian Medical Center ; Daniel Freeman Memorial Hospital and Centinela Medical Center, both in Inglewood; Brotman Medical Center, Culver City; St. Francis Medical Center, Lynwood; Robert F. Kennedy Medical Center, Hawthorne; White Memorial and Queen of Angels medical centers in East Los Angeles; Dominguez Medical Center, Long Beach, and Hospital of the Good Samaritan and California Medical Center in Los Angeles.

Terry Belmont, acting administrator of California Medical Center, which receives more public ambulances than any other private emergency room in the county, warned, however, that the pact will not be acceptable unless the California Medical Assistance Commission also provides the hospital with additional money through a Medi-Cal rate hike.

Cripple Network

California Medical Center, and several other downtown hospitals, had planned to curtail emergency room services Monday, refusing to accept all public ambulances. Other hospitals had threatened to follow suit, a move that health officials fear would cripple the county’s emergency services network.

Officials at California say their emergency rooms are so unprofitable that the losses--more than $500,000 a month--threaten the entire institution.

In May, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors headed off cutbacks at the medical center through Aug. 1 by awarding the hospital $560,000. On Tuesday, Gates offered California and 10 other major hospitals $1.25 million to postpone cutbacks until Oct. 1.

The money, subject to approval by the supervisors, would be divided according to the number of ambulances each hospital receives. The 11 hospitals are considered by county health officials to have the biggest, most vital emergency rooms in the county.

‘Another Band-Aid’

“This is another Band-Aid,” said David Langness of the Hospital Council of Southern California, which negotiated the tentative agreement. “It’s the adhesive tape that will hold the system together for the next two months.”

But Harvey Rudisaile, president of the White Memorial Medical Center, said the linchpin in the agreement is California Medical Center--and whether that hospital is able to win a Medi-Cal rate hike from the Medical Assistance Commission, which negotiates state Medi-Cal contracts with private hospitals.

Dr. Kenneth Kizer, state health services director, has gone on record favoring such a move.

Belmont, at California Medical Center, said, “I think Kizer is really trying hard and everybody is trying hard, so I’m encouraged. But there’s a ways to go yet.”

He said he has asked the commission for a hearing at its Tuesday meeting and hopes to have the hospital’s Medi-Cal rate hike approved at that time.

Gates said that, in any event, he does not believe that a formal agreement with the hospitals can be signed for two or three weeks.

Left unresolved are requests to the state Department of Health from two small downtown hospitals--Linda Vista Community Hospital in Boyle Heights and French Hospital in Chinatown--to reduce emergency services next month.

These two hospitals were not included in Tuesday’s meeting, nor are they eligible for any of the $1.25 million in proposed county funds.