Assessing what it will take to heal King/Drew

Re “Board Agrees on King/Drew Effort,” Oct. 4

Obviously, the plan for Harbor-UCLA Medical Center to take over Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center is a hopeful sign that things just might get better. What struck me was the quote from Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles) that seems to sum it all up: “This is not a time for finger-pointing.” Usually when politicians say that, it’s because they don’t want the finger pointed at them.

It seems to me that the problems with King/Drew stem from the fact that there has been no finger-pointing -- from incompetent staff, to the private oversight company that took county money to make things right and ultimately made them worse, to the L.A. County supervisors whose lack of interest and resolve kept the status quo, hoping it would somehow fix itself if ignored.

The best way to ensure a successful turnaround for King/Drew is to close the hospital for 30 days, have a judge invalidate all contracts with employees (for public safety), rehire only the proven and competent people and completely clean house of the county supervisors.

DANIEL ZIMMERMAN

Northridge

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The Board of Supervisors and Dr. Bruce Chernof, the director of the county Department of Health Services, are still playing politics with King/Drew. It is this type of political pandering, rather than focusing on the provision of medical care to people in need, that they have been engaging in for decades.

They have been so afraid of politicians and King/Drew community groups, notorious for interfering with the hospital’s management, that bad employees were virtually immune to discipline. That is, in great part, what brought down the facility. How gargantuan a catastrophe does it take to make this stop? To continue to appease Rep. Waters, Jesse Jackson and community groups, the board is now putting Harbor-UCLA’s community at risk.

And now Chernof says he wants to bring Antoinette Epps, who failed at her job as King/Drew’s chief executive, into the Harbor-UCLA administrative group. What happened to getting rid of King/Drew employees who fail to do their jobs? Rather than trust the well-regarded Harbor-UCLA administrative group to try to salvage King/Drew, Chernof is making the clearly political decision to keep Epps on the payroll and in the decision-making process -- still playing to the political interests.

Epps and Chernof both need to go.

LEANNE CUNNINGHAM

Monrovia

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Hope is essential for survival. The community around King/Drew deserves access to quality healthcare, and this should not be forgotten by those making necessary and painful cuts in services.

Harbor-UCLA and King/Drew patients will suffer because there are simply not enough personnel or resources to serve both communities efficiently. It is crucial that the changes made today are not accepted as permanent but rather as temporary solutions to a problem of behemoth proportions.

Let us not forget either that not all is wrong with King/Drew. A careful assessment of needs and the quality of individual programs should be supported and maintained throughout these tumultuous times.

Lastly, this community will remember the promises not kept, i.e., sacrificing trauma services to save the hospital, and the ones being formulated right now. Let us keep each other in check to fulfill these promises.

A. PATRICIA DEL ANGEL MD

Culver City