L.A.'s Public Health Crisis
Martin Luther King Jr.-Harbor Hospital is set to close down soon after failing a federal inspection. The action comes after a new round of questions about care, including one in which a woman writhed on the floor of the emergency room lobby for 45 minutes before dying of a perforated bowel. No one stepped in to help her. The Willowbrook hospital, once known as King/Drew, has been plagued by allegations of poor treatment almost since its inception 35 years ago. Scroll down for the latest coverage plus The Times’Anatomy of a hospital in crisis: Check out Times Staff Writer Charles Ornstein’s
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L.A. County supervisors act to close the hospital but hope to reopen it, and a federal report on its woes is made public. -
2A videotape and two 911 calls cast light on a case that might’ve been ignored.
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3With King/Drew’s failure of a final federal inspection, some say it might be time for a private firm to take over the embattled facility.
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4The hospital will lose all federal money by year’s end, throwing its fate in doubt. Supervisors will hold an emergency meeting Monday.
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6On the day he lost the coveted endorsement of Earvin “Magic” Johnson, Los Angeles Mayor James K.
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Frustrated over recent deaths at King/Drew, supervisors order the agency’s leader to move his office to the hospital and increase oversight.
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8Nurses didn’t notice deteriorating vital signs on a patient’s monitor, a county memo says.
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9Fixing the Martin Luther King Jr.
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10Supervisors talk of breaking ties with the university that trains its doctors. Yaroslavsky asks, ‘Can this hospital survive?’
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Officials believe the March cases involved critical errors, despite vows of change at the hospital. The patients were all seriously ill.
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12U.S. inspectors find that King/Drew nurses were ordered to lie and key drugs weren’t given. Criminal inquiries could be launched.
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Politicians and residents crowd hearing to oppose the county’s proposal to shut down trauma unit.
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14The congresswoman brings her organizing skills and trademark passion to the battle over whether the trauma unit will be closed.
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15Protests and appeals fail to sway four of the five county supervisors. The vote to shut the trauma center will probably happen on Tuesday.
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Supervisors say the closure will help them save the troubled hospital, and they adopt the goal of eventually reopening the unit.
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17A federal judge on Thursday allowed Los Angeles County to continue with its plan to phase out the trauma center at Martin Luther King, Jr.
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18The hospital could lose its accreditation, along with insurance contracts and training programs.
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19Politicians and others fighting to save the endangered trauma center at Martin Luther King Jr.
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Martin Luther King Jr.
