Union Members hold Rally in Support of King/Drew

Hundreds of unionized Los Angeles County employees rallied Saturday in support of Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center, urging the Board of Supervisors to preserve and fortify the hospitals’ services rather than cut them.

Speakers at the noontime rally said the board should avoid downsizing or privatizing the public hospital as it works to restore the medical center’s national accreditation, keep federal dollars coming in and stabilize its management.

The demonstration came immediately after the adjournment of a convention of the Service Employees International Union Local 660 and a week after county health officials backed off a plan to close King/Drew’s obstetric, pediatric and neonatal wards.

The plan, proposed by Department of Health Services Director Thomas Garthwaite, was pulled when officials belatedly discovered it could cost the county $29 million in government aid.

The rally was held just outside the Los Angeles Convention Center, where SEIU Local 660 was meeting, and speakers addressed the crowd from atop a flatbed truck.

As the audience blew whistles and waved colorful signs that said “Restore King” and “Strengthen King -- Don’t Privatize,” Assemblyman Dario Frommer (D-Glendale) said any shrinking of the hospital was ill-advised.

“There is no more pressing fight than keeping this hospital strong,” Frommer said. “If there’s a problem, you fix it right.... Don’t blame the hardworking nurses, technicians and doctors.”

Lawmakers at the rally focused their ire on Garthwaite and the three county supervisors who had voted to consider the closure of the King/Drew wards: Zev Yaroslavsky, Don Knabe and Mike Antonovich.

“Garthwaite is the problem,” said Assemblyman Mervyn Dymally (D-Compton), who repeated his call for the health director to quit.

Hospital employees said the ongoing media coverage of King/Drew’s troubles had hurt staff morale. Wilson Mendez, a physical therapist, said employees often are asked by outsiders why they continue to work there.

“It’s hard to explain to somebody who reads the L.A. Times ... why we are still there,” he said.

Mendez said he became a physical therapist at King/Drew as part of a desire to help the poor and underserved community the hospital serves. He said he benefited from county health services as he grew up.

The media coverage has also reduced the number of patients coming to King/Drew, Mendez said. Recently, a woman with severe back pain delayed coming to the hospital for weeks, he said.

“She said that she heard through the media they were killing people at King/Drew,” Mendez said, “so she was scared of coming in.”

The Times reported last year that life-threatening problems have continued at King/Drew for more than a decade.

The hospital, just south of Watts, lost its national accreditation earlier this year and is threatened with a loss of federal funding because of lapses in patient care, some of which have resulted in deaths.