20 Arrested in Budget Protest : Labor: Demonstrators erect a mock hospital in a busy Westside intersection to decry planned cutbacks in county health care.

Culminating a loud and boisterous union march protesting deep cuts that threaten Los Angeles County’s health care system, 20 demonstrators were arrested Thursday night when they shut down one of Los Angeles’ busiest intersections by setting up a mock medical clinic.

In a well-organized bit of street theater, the demonstrators--dressed as doctors and nurses administering care to patients in hospital beds--blocked the corner of La Cienega and Beverly boulevards opposite the Beverly Center.

With a huge banner reading “Pete Wilson Memorial Health Clinic,” the protesters directed their wrath at the governor and at state legislators demanding that Sacramento come to the financially troubled county’s rescue.

The street clinic was intended to dramatize the potential effects on patients and workers if the county closes all of its comprehensive health centers and most of its community health clinics Oct. 1.

The demonstration was one of the loudest and longest in a hot summer of discontent and generated the most arrests. The 20 demonstrators were booked on failure to disperse charges and released by Los Angeles Police Department officers.

The street clinic was established a short time after about 600 sign-carrying and whistle-blowing demonstrators had taken their cause to the doorstep of the world famous Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.

There, Gilbert Cedillo, general manager of the Service Employees International Union, Local 660, vowed that county health services workers threatened with layoffs will stay on the job at the clinics.

“We are here today as we march through the finer parts of the community to reaffirm our commitment that public health and health care is a right of every human being. It is not negotiable,” Cedillo said. “We promise every patient in this community that we will serve them until the very end.”

Adopting the tactics of nonviolent disobedience from the 1960s civil rights movement, Cedillo vowed to the cheering crowd: “If we have to be chained to the doors of these clinics, we will be chained.”

Cancer patient Anna Rodriguez said as she marched with her 2-year-old-daughter, Stefani: “If they close, where will I go? I’ll have nowhere to go.” Rodriguez receives treatment at the Olive View Medical Center in Sylmar.

Patty Margaret, a nurse at County-USC Medial Center for 20 years, said the budget cuts that threaten outpatient services are “the saddest thing I’ve ever seen. We have to beg to care for the patients we treat.”

The march through one of the Westside’s restaurant, retail and medical complexes was staged on the eve of county hospitals refusing today to accept most new patients transferred from private hospitals.

Motorists caught in snarled traffic either honked their horns and waved in support, or honked in a futile effort to break the gridlock.

A spokesman for Cedars-Sinai, Ron Wise, said he had been told by the union that the private hospital was targeted for symbolic reasons.

“They called us about it and said they were coming,” Wise said. “They said they wanted the Westside to understand their position: that it wasn’t directed at us specifically but that they just wanted a big hospital on the Westside. This is not an issue for Cedars-Sinai. This is an issue for Southern California.”

But Cedillo, flanked by hundreds of county workers, patients and community supporters, presented the hospital with the union’s latest position paper titled, “Keeping L.A. Healthy: Preserving the Public Mission, Preserving a Quality Work Force.”

The union paper said the county’s downsizing of its health care system--including the planned closure of health centers and clinics--will put the safety net for the entire community at risk.

Besides closing outpatient facilities, the union paper said, the county is eliminating almost $98 million in hospital-based services and $14 million in public health services, including reductions in prevention and treatment of communicable diseases.

The union paper also included a list of safeguards that Cedillo said were necessary if public-private partnerships are to save some of those clinics and health centers that would otherwise be closed.

With guidance from health czar Burt Margolin, the county is trying to create such partnerships, in which private health care providers such as Cedars would take over the facilities from the county and run them. Margolin is insisting that the private providers treat those who lack any health insurance, as well as Medi-Cal patients.

Cedillo cautioned that private hospitals in other states have refused to treat the poor and uninsured, “placing more emphasis on their bottom line than on quality service.”

Saying that the county “is both legally and morally obligated to maintain the county’s health safety net,” the paper said those private providers who do not wish to treat those without insurance “should be excluded from a relationship with the county system.”

Also on Thursday, a group of health providers led by the Venice Family Clinic announced their desire to build a coalition that will treat as many sick and injured poor residents as possible. The group’s goal is to assist the county in closing the gap that would be created by the clinic closures.