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$625,000 Settlement OKd in Hospital Death

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The county Board of Supervisors voted unanimously Tuesday to award $625,000 to the survivors of a man who died at the county’s Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center in 1995.

Los Angeles County lawyers concluded that Charles Hamilton, 56, died after a first-year surgical intern inserted a catheter into his chest in a “high-risk” and unnecessary procedure as he was recovering from injuries suffered in a car accident.

The settlement was delayed for almost eight months because King/Drew officials had not completed an adequate review of the case to see what went wrong, and then did not submit a formal corrective action plan to the Department of Health Services, as required, so the supervisors could approve the settlement, according to medical and legal documents.

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The settlement was expedited after top county health officials ordered the South Los Angeles trauma center and public hospital to submit the corrective action plan, and after a judge set a trial date last month to put pressure on the county.

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