Charge of King/Drew may shift

Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center, which in recent
years has been sharply criticized by the government for failing
federal inspections, may merge with a UCLA hospital in an attempt
to stabilize.

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors may decide to
transfer management of King/Drew to Harbor-UCLA Medical Center,
which is near Torrance.

Having failed a number of federal patient-care inspections,
King/Drew is in danger of losing nearly $200 million in annual
federal funding, and a number of county supervisors have said they
think transferring management to Harbor-UCLA would help King/Drew
stabilize.

“What we’re about to undertake is a radical
reformation of how health care is delivered in the southern part of
Los Angeles,” county supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky told the Los
Angeles Times on Sept. 29. “Everything we’ve done up
till now has been incremental in trying to fix the (King/Drew)
hospital.”

Yaroslavsky added that officials at King/Drew have so far shown
“a considerable receptivity to” the idea of Harbor-UCLA
taking over management.

Since 2004, King/Drew has repeatedly come under fire from the
federal government, which has cited the hospital for patient-care
violations that have led to injuries and death.

In February 2005, the hospital lost its national
accreditation.

And last week, federal authorities announced that they would cut
off funding to King/Drew at the end of this year if the regulatory
problems were not solved.

Federal funding comprises nearly half of King/Drew’s
yearly budget.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has said he will make efforts to keep
King/Drew open.

The hospital has regional significance because it first opened
in 1965 after the Watts Riot and was intended to serve the South
Los Angeles community.

“They have great challenges, but we are going to do
everything we can to provide help and assistance,”
Schwarzenegger said during a bill signing in Pasadena.

So far, Schwarzenegger has not suggested replacing lost federal
money with state funding.

Many questions regarding the proposed merger still remain
unanswered. Officials still have not determined what will happen to
the over 2,200 employees of King/Drew.

Harbor-UCLA has so far declined to comment on how the move would
affect that hospital.

But Harbor-UCLA must comply with the supervisors’
decision.

“I think that Harbor would be what I would support,”
supervisor Yvonne Brathwaite Burke, whose district includes
King/Drew and Harbor-UCLA, told the Los Angeles Times.

“Obviously, Harbor is a hospital in my district that I
believe has a very high quality.”

With reports from Bruin Wire services.