Effort to Shrink King/Drew Neonatal ICU to Continue

Los Angeles County health officials will stick with a recommendation to downsize the neonatal intensive care unit at Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center to save money and give the troubled hospital a chance to right itself.

The decision came after officials took another look at the idea in response to community protests earlier this year.

If the Board of Supervisors backs the plan, county-owned King/Drew will no longer care for the sickest of babies.

Those infants will instead be treated at two other public hospitals, Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center northeast of downtown and Harbor-UCLA Medical Center near Torrance.

The neonatal ICU at King/Drew was renovated in the mid-1990s, and hospital officials have often trumpeted it as offering among the facility’s premier services. Among other things, it tends to babies born to drug-addicted mothers and infants born prematurely.

The proposal would also downgrade the neonatal ICU at Olive View-UCLA Medical Center in Sylmar.

In a spirited rally in support of King/Drew in January, Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles) told a county health department employee that “we will be on top your desk” unless the decision on the neonatal unit was reversed. Waters could not be reached for comment Tuesday.

Dr. Xylina Bean, director of the neonatology division at King/Drew, said the move was “blatant racism.”

“If they downgraded service at Harbor, the protest would be such that they would have to listen to them, whereas this community is just a bunch of poor folks they don’t have to listen to,” she said.

At Olive View, the downgrading of the neonatal unit was viewed differently. “We do not like the inconvenience this causes for those patients affected, but we recognize that the [health] department must use its limited resources carefully,” said Dr. William Loof, the medical director, in a statement.

In a letter to county supervisors, Dr. Thomas Garthwaite, director of the county Department of Health Services, characterized the move as a consolidation, because the number of babies born in county hospitals has fallen sharply in the last decade.

Garthwaite also noted a decision by California Children’s Services -- a state program that pays for the care of critically ill children -- to no longer recognize King/Drew as a highly specialized hospital for care of newborns and children. That program cited King/Drew’s pediatric department last year for lapses in record-keeping and care by physicians, nurses and doctor trainees.

Separately, the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education proposed closing the neonatal residency program. The group found that King/Drew didn’t treat enough sick babies to ensure adequate training. The decision would not become final until after the hospital’s response was considered.

On Tuesday, Bean said all the problems that were identified had been fixed.

Garthwaite said he recently met with Bean to discuss the change. He said the decision ultimately stemmed from problems found at King/Drew but not at Harbor-UCLA.