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Richardson
Promises ‘Killer King’ Hospital Hearings
No dates, locations
have been set, says staffer
By
Gene C. Johnson Jr.
Bulletin
Staff Writer
Calling
it a “top priority,” a spokesman for Rep. Laura Richardson
(D- Long Beach) said the congresswoman plans to hold hearings on
the plight of the beleaguered Martin Luther King Hospital (MLK).
An approximate time or location of when the hearings will be held
has yet to be established, said Richardson’s spokesperson, William
Marshall Jr.
“
This is a top priority; the hearings will happen,” Marshall said. “It’s
her top priority to get those hearings done. We just don’t have a
date or a time, but it’s going to happen. This hospital is very dear
to her heart.”
A swearing-in ceremony was held at MLK, now King-Harbor http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laura_Richardson after Richardson won an Aug. 21, 2007 special election to fill the seat
left
vacant following the death of Rep. Juanita Millender-McDonald, who
died April 22, 2007, after succumbing to colon cancer.
Richardson’s 37th Congressional District includes Long Beach, Compton,
Carson, Signal Hill and unincorporated areas of Los Angeles County.
She made a similar announcement of plans to hold congressional hearings
during an Aug. 23 meeting of the Los Angeles-based Los Angeles Urban Police
Roundtable, said Earl Ofari Hutchinson, the organization’s president.
“Congressperson Richardson’s planned hearings are a big breakthrough
in the ongoing battle to restore the severely downsized King Hospital
to full service hospital status,” Hutchinson said. “The roundtable
will be fully involved in Congressperson Richardson’s King Hospital
congressional initiative.
“She wants a congressional panel, not just our three congresspersons
in the L.A. (county) area. She is really trying to make this a national
issue. What we’re really looking at is: Is there any way we can bring
it back (to a full-service hospital) with federal funding?”
Originally called Los Angeles County Southeast General and then Martin
Luther King Jr. General Hospital, the institution opened March 27, 1972,
before the facility’s name was eventually changed to Martin Luther
King Jr./Drew Medical Center when it became a full-service medical center
and teaching hospital adjacent to the Charles R. Drew University of Medicine
and Science.
Through the years, the hospital earned the nickname “Killer King” due
to a perceived lack of quality.
Troubles began for the hospital when, in January 2004, inspectors
from the US Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) found that
nurses lied about patients’ conditions in their medical charts and
failed to give vital medications prescribed by doctors. Additionally, seriously-ill
patients were left unattended for hours.
In June 2004, CMS stated that patients were in jeopardy, citing the
use of Taser guns to subdue psychiatric patients. CMS threatened to pull
federal funding, which comprises over half of King/Drew’s $400 million
operating budget.
By September 2004 the Los Angeles County Department of Health (DHS)
recommended the closure of King/Drew’s busy trauma unit, stating
that the hospital needed to put its full energy into fixing problems in
other areas.
Despite intense community opposition, the trauma unit was closed
in early 2005. During all this, the Joint Commission of Accreditation of
Healthcare Organizations threatened to pull its seal of approval due to
what they said was the hospital’s failure to correct severe lapses
in patient care. The hospital’s seal of approval was revoked in February
2005, an action that caused the hospital to loose $14 million in physician-training
funds.
In September 2006, King/Drew was notified by CMS that it failed a “make-or-break” inspection
and would lose annual funding of about $200 million, more than half of
its budget.
Federal officials delayed pulling the hospital’s funding. In turn,
county officials agreed to reduce the number of beds in the hospital from
more than 200 to 42 and place it under the oversight of Harbor-UCLA Medical
Center, thereby changing the facility name to King-Harbor Hospital.
In March 2007, hospital surveillance recorded a 43-year-old woman
writhing in pain for 45 minutes on the floor of the hospital’s emergency
room as a janitor moped around her and hospital staff ignored her.
The woman later died.
Following a week-long federal inspection in June 2007, inspectors
from CMS cited King-Harbor for placing patients in immediate jeopardy of
harm hours after a psychiatric patient cut herself with a scalpel in an
emergency room bathroom.
On Aug. 10, 2007, federal officials decided to revoke $200 million
in funding after the hospital failed a review by the CMS. The emergency
room was closed at 7 p.m. that day, and ambulances were diverted to other
area hospitals; the greatest burden fell on St. Francis Medical Center.
The hospital now only offers outpatient services .
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