Rallies Aren’t Enough

A federal report obtained by The Times last week laid out the conditions at Martin Luther King Jr./ Drew Medical Center in graphic, damning detail. Overworked, undertrained nurses failed to give medication for severe pain or monitor vital signs. A 20-year-old man died in a pool of his vomit, unnoticed and untreated 18 hours after arriving by ambulance. The number of patients who died in the last year after receiving blatantly inadequate care stands at at least five.

Community rallies at the Watts-area hospital in recent weeks unfortunately have not been aimed at such horrors. Led by Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles), supporters of the county-owned facility have gathered to accuse Los Angeles County supervisors of trying to kill the hospital or at least make it the scapegoat for countywide problems.

County supervisors say they have no intention of shuttering the only public hospital in South Los Angeles. But if last week’s federal study prompts the U.S. government to withdraw Medicare and Medicaid funding, King/Drew could close no matter what the supervisors or the protesters say. What the hospital needs is not rallies but an overhaul.

Critics have long charged that the county’s healthcare system overall is bloated and inefficient, with a top-heavy bureaucracy, record-keeping problems and unions determined to save jobs at all costs. Even within such a system, King/Drew is regarded as poorly managed. If years of government investigations and the loss of accreditation for two of 18 doctor-training programs haven’t confirmed this, surely the latest report did.

Underlying the county’s healthcare problems are the 2.2 million Los Angeles County residents with no medical insurance, a quarter of the population. King/Drew serves the corner of the county with the highest poverty rate and the highest percentage of patients without health insurance. Most work at low-wage jobs and can’t afford time off, so they postpone seeking care until ailments flare into critical illnesses. But that is true for the patients of most county hospitals that serve the uninsured.

To use such facts as an excuse for King/Drew’s failings is to fall for the denial that county supervisors have practiced for years as they expressed shock at report after report, then called for only incremental changes.

The supervisors are finally starting to get it. The hospital’s other “supporters” must do the same if the medical center is to survive and provide the competent care the community deserves.