L.A. County Says It Has No Plans to Close King/Drew

In a strongly worded unanimous motion and even stronger comments, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors denied Tuesday that it has any intent to close the Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center and castigated hospital supporters who have suggested otherwise.

Calling the suggestions “malicious” and “irresponsible,” supervisors emphatically disputed statements madeFriday at a rally in Watts, where several speakers, including Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles), repeatedly vowed to stop the county from closing the Willowbrook hospital.

At the rally, hospital supporters distributed leaflets featuring large print that stated: “The county is closing down King/Drew hospital” and “Don’t let it happen.” Waters, who spent several hours touring the hospital with community activists the day before the rally, passed many of the fliers out herself .

The rally was organized after county health officials announced plans to downgrade the status of King/Drew’s neonatal intensive care unit, the latest in a series of significant changes the county has made at the troubled institution.

In response to a recent spate of questionable patient deaths, unfavorable reviews by government inspectors, and the revocation of accreditation of some critical King/Drew training programs, the county laid off some administrators and installed a crisis management team to oversee the hospital’s day-to-day operation.

A national accrediting group in late 2003 also recommended closing King/Drew’s neonatal physician training program because it said the hospital doesn’t treat enough critically ill babies to provide adequate physician training. The county’s health department has not said it would close the unit, but does plan to downgrade the services offered there as part of plans to consolidate health care across the county.

Still, some supporters of the hospital have said the county’s actions amount to a “piece by piece” dismantling of King/Drew, and that charge dominated last week’s protest. Fliers advertising the rally bore three photos: a pointing Martin Luther King Jr. in mid-speech, a smoldering neighborhood in the aftermath of the 1965 Watts riots, and one of the hospital, built after those riots to address severe health-care inequities in South Los Angeles.

Calling the fliers “erroneous,” Supervisor Yvonne Brathwaite Burke introduced a motion in which the board reaffirmed its “intention to correct the problems at King/Drew ... with the objective of preserving the hospital and its vital role in the countywide health delivery system.”

In an interview Tuesday, Waters said “there are two different languages” being spoken about the hospital. “When [Burke] says, ‘No, we’re not closing the hospital,’ she means, ‘We’re not putting a padlock on the door, we’re not boarding it up, and we’re not shutting it down to say, no more hospital,’ ” Waters said.

“When the community talks about it, they say, ‘Another unit being cut. Another essential service being cut. More beds being reduced. More nurses being cut through attrition and nonhiring. More services being lost to the community.’ This is that trail to closure as they see it.”

Times staff writer Mitchell Landsberg contributed to this report.