Probe of King Hospital Urged : Burke Seeks Review After Report on Deputy’s Death

In the wake of a devastating government report about medical care at Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center, Los Angeles County Supervisor Yvonne Brathwaite Burke on Friday called for the county to hire an independent evaluation of the inner-city hospital’s medical procedures.

Burke also said she will ask county health department officials to tell the Board of Supervisors what steps the hospital has taken to prevent circumstances similar to what investigators say led to the “preventable death” of a deputy shot in the line of duty three years ago.

Burke--whose district includes the 338-bed medical center south of Watts--called for the review in response to a report issued by the district attorney this week blaming the death of Deputy Nelson Yamamoto on “gross negligence” in his postoperative care.

Yamamoto was rushed to King in March, 1992, after being shot four times. He had a 60% chance to survive his wounds until a doctor gave him a lethal mix of heart drugs and Yamamoto went into cardiac arrest, the report concluded.

The report capped a nearly three-year investigation of Yamamoto’s death by the district attorney’s office and the California Medical Board, the state’s doctor disciplinary agency. The report warned that “the level of care at this hospital will lead to further unnecessary patient deaths.”

Based on the findings, the medical board late Wednesday filed administrative complaints seeking the licenses of four doctors who treated Yamamoto, including Dr. Rosalyn Sterling-Scott, King’s vice chairwoman of surgery.

William G. Moore, a Beverly Hills attorney representing three of the doctors, declined to discuss specifics about the case Friday. But he said it was “absolutely unfair” that his clients or the medical center did not see the report before it was released to county supervisors and the news media.

Sterling-Scott was not at King on Friday afternoon and could not be reached for comment.

Burke said she will introduce a motion at the supervisors’ meeting Tuesday to “engage an independent consultant” to review the teaching hospital’s medical procedures.

She said administrators at King have told her they have made improvements over the last three years, including checking to make sure that department heads were board certified in their specialties. A county health department spokeswoman said Friday that the head of the emergency room had been replaced after an accrediting agency found that he was not certified as an emergency room physician.

Burke said that she “wouldn’t hesitate” to recommend the facility to her constituents or check into it herself.

“If you close every hospital in Los Angeles County that has an unnecessary death or has a gross negligence action against it, you’re going to have to close every public and private hospital,” she said.

Health department spokeswoman Wanglin said that officials are preparing a report explaining improvements that have been made at the hospital and that they will hire an independent consultant if the board votes to ask for one next week.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Brian Kelberg, who spearheaded the Yamamoto investigation, said he has seen no evidence that circumstances have improved at King since Yamamoto’s death. He said the hospital’s assurances sounded like those they made in 1989 after Los Angeles Times articles exposing incompetent health care.

“If you’re asking me would I go to that hospital, I’ll give you a blunt answer. The answer is no, I would not,” Kelberg said.

Nevertheless, Los Angeles Dist. Atty. Gil Garcetti said that Burke’s call for an outside review was the kind of action he was hoping to get in circulating the report.