Hospital Security and Gun Control

Certainly, security at County-USC Medical Center’s emergency room could use beefing up. But alarming security problems exist in all patient care areas in every local hospital. Only one example: ICUs, even those with access codes, have become nightmares for nurses who not only must care for critically wounded gang members but also must act as security guard for whatever rival happens through the door.

Moreover, the increasing despair of the needy who cannot obtain basic health services, of the patients who cannot negotiate the system once they enter it, and of the distraught families who are often offered only inhumane solutions for their loved ones can no longer be dismissed merely as the failure of cranks to cope. Metal detectors and bulletproof glass serve a purpose, but they’re Band-Aids on society’s slit carotid. The roots of the tragic violence of Feb. 8 run so deep that there is not security enough anywhere to insulate the medical world.

KATE McFADDEN

Arcadia