Health-Care Cuts: Who Will Take Up the Slack?
Re “Facing a Real Emergency,” Aug. 7: The closure of Harbor-UCLA Medical Center will have a deep and far-reaching fiscal impact that will be felt countywide. Where do the county supervisors expect the patients to go? These patients are not going to get on a bus and ride 20 miles to the next county facility. They will show up at the nearest emergency department where, by federal law, they must have a screening evaluation, passing the financial strain on to private profit and nonprofit organizations. The financially weaker institutions will be forced to close.
We already have a shrinking number of hospital beds in L.A., Orange, Ventura and Riverside counties and have a growing population. Before the supervisors close any more of the county’s facilities they need to think hard about the fiscal effect this will have on the county and the businesses that have chosen to call Southern California home.
Edie Schlemmer
Norwalk
*
I can’t be the only one who is appalled by our nation’s misplaced priorities. We have enough money to aid practically every other country in the world, but we can’t afford to keep open inner-city hospitals that provide quality care for low-income patients. Gov. Gray Davis and President Bush should be ashamed.
David Kniss
Victorville
*
The Harbor-UCLA Medical Center should be kissed by a bulldozer, and the sooner the better. For decades its poor construction, haphazard layout and labyrinthine interiors have been a daily reminder of the folly of throwing together a solution based on panic and penny wisdom in order to serve the public. With major edifices by Frank Gehry and Jose Rafael Moneo soon to open here, Los Angeles is a world-class metropolis; we should put our present-day down-at-the-heels messenger to the sword and try again at a later date, when better funding is available to assure the creation of a well-appointed design that answers our need for effective medical care.
Charles De V. Conyers II
Gardena
*
Re “Sword Over Health Funds,” editorial, Aug. 5: We disagree with your conclusion that California and L.A. County must prepare to dramatically trim health-care coverage for the working poor, children and the disabled. Here in L.A., cutbacks in state and federal funding may force the county to close dozens of clinics, trauma centers and mental health clinics, as well as shutter two major hospitals. Such draconian steps will threaten the health and safety of all the people of L.A.
We physicians are already doing our part by supporting meager Medi-Cal fees, so the savings can be funneled to hospitals serving a higher-than-average share of the medically indigent. But look carefully at the root of the problem. Our county has 2 million uninsured, and the state and federal governments must accept responsibility here. The county cannot afford to do so; nor can the private sector--hospitals and doctors--take up this slack. The impact of triaging care for the poor, and forcing on them an even lower standard of care, will affect the welfare of us all. Caring for the least of us is our mutual responsibility.
Scott R. Karlan MD
President, L.A. County
Medical Assn.