Ailing Trauma Network to Get County Bailout

Scrambling yet again to bail out the region’s fragile trauma network, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday authorized $9.4 million in aid to keep the critical hospitals open through March.

The supervisors’ action was taken to counterbalance $30 million in cuts being considered by Gov. Gray Davis, who in the face of a possible $14-billion state deficit has halted some state aid to trauma systems across California. Los Angeles hospitals have lost $6.8 million, retroactive to July 1, officials say.

Acting Director of Health Services Fred Leaf said the county hopes that the state Legislature in January will not make the cuts and instead will stabilize the trauma system past the spring, when the new county money runs out. “This action holds the trauma network together,” Leaf said.

It is the second time the county has had to bail out its trauma system in the last two years. Just as they did last year, supervisors acted because state cuts were causing hospitals to threaten to pull out of the network. The money Davis may cut includes state aid extended this year in response to the prior trauma bailout.

The supervisors’ unanimous action on trauma came as the board prepared to devote even more time in the future to the county’s crumbling health system. Supervisors agreed Tuesday to hold meetings every other month next year on the fate of their health department, which faces a $170-million deficit and must decide what programs to cut.

Supervisor Gloria Molina, who proposed the meetings, said they would offer “the time to engage in thoughtful discussions” about how to deal with the county’s looming health crisis, caused by a steep drop in federal funding that is expected to leave a $1-billion hole in the department’s budget by 2006.

Topics for discussion at the meetings will include reports on the amount of health money on hand, efforts to get more funds from Sacramento and Washington, and how job and service cuts would be implemented. Supervisors more than a year ago asked their health department to prepare specific cuts but have yet to get any concrete plans on how the county will deal with the deficit.

In January, supervisors will also hear a report from a task force studying whether to create a health authority, an idea backed by critics of the board who say the supervisors politicize health decisions.

The most immediate problem Tuesday was the trauma system, a network of 13 public and private hospitals that treat severely injured emergency patients but suffer financial losses in doing so. After Davis announced he may cut state trauma aid, a few local private trauma centers began to spread the word that they may have to pull out of the network without more help.

Connie Mathews, a spokeswoman for Huntington Memorial Hospital in Pasadena, said her hospital would have had to refer the matter to its board of directors if the supervisors had not come up with the money. “It’s adequate,” she said of the new funding, “but as we’ve always said, it’s just a Band-Aid until there’s some permanent source of income.”

“In another year,” Mathews said, “there will be another fire drill.”