County Medical Clinics Still Open for Business : Health: 24 sites, many of them serving the poor, were slated to close today. But $72.8 million in tobacco tax funds will keep them operating.

It’s back to business as usual at Los Angeles County health clinics after Gov. Pete Wilson signed legislation sparing 24 of them from closing today.

The bill (AB 1038) waives a matching-fund requirement and allows the county to receive $72.8 million in state tobacco tax funds to keep the clinics open. Six of them are in Los Angeles’ urban core. Two comprehensive medical centers, Hubert H. Humphrey and H. Claude Hudson, and two smaller clinics in South Los Angeles, are the health department’s busiest.

The two comprehensive centers alone account for 500,000 visits a year, relieving hospitals of the brunt of urgent care. The smaller health clinics in the area include Northeast in East Los Angeles, Imperial Heights and Florence-Firestone in South Los Angeles and Bell Gardens.

Hours before the legislation was signed Friday morning, yellow closure notices in English and Spanish were prominently displayed on the front door of the Florence-Firestone clinic. Similar signs were also tacked up at other health clinics and centers.

At 8:15 a.m., it was business as usual inside Florence-Firestone. Nurses and health care advisers hustled to open their offices for the day while women and children crowded into waiting rooms for checkups or prenatal care.

Even with the clinics remaining open, not everyone’s health needs will be met, one county health official warned.

“There’s an estimated 1 million people in Los Angeles still with unmet health needs,” said Willie T. May, chief executive officer for the county’s Metro-South health district. “We’re just putting a finger in the dike.”

Wilson waited nearly a month before signing the legislation, which was part of a package of bills affecting Los Angeles County. The clinics were initially scheduled to close Sept. 1, but the Legislature’s passage of the bill pushed the date back to today, awaiting Wilson’s signature or veto.

“These are the centers and clinics that do the most work for the indigent,” said Assemblywoman Marguerite Archie-Hudson (D-Los Angeles), the bill’s sponsor. “Without them, people would have real problems getting care.”