UC Regents to consider hearing proposal to reopen MLK Hospital

The UC Board of Regents are considering hearing a proposal on creating a partnership with Los Angeles County in order to reopen the Martin Luther King Jr. Hospital in 2012 at their upcoming meeting, Sept. 15-17. The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors agreed to present a proposal to enlist the help of the University of California, as the county does not have the personnel to reopen the hospital on its own.

The UC Regents have not decided to hear the county’s proposal at the upcoming UC Regents meeting in September. However, UC Office of the President spokesman Peter King said that the original plan was to hear the proposal if everything remains on course, as it has been so far.

The King hospital, located in the Willowbrook neighborhood of south Los Angeles is a county-run hospital that was closed in 2007 after losing federal funding because of competency issues, said Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky.

Since then, an outpatient medical clinic remains in operation, offering services ranging from general medicine to women’s health and even oncology.

“We’re in a crisis situation in the county. There aren’t enough emergency rooms, roughly 11 have been closed in the last 10 years, and disproportionately so in south Los Angeles,” said Michael Wilson, spokesman for the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services.

In light of the many hospital closures in the last decade, the county supervisors feel a particular importance in reopening King hospital.

“We felt an obligation to reopen it as soon as possible,” Yaroslavsky said.

Yaroslavsky said King hospital was the most important one to reopen because it was able to serve the greatest number of people in an area with an acute need for emergency care.

The proposal, if approved by the UC Regents, would provide 120 beds for inpatient care as well as ambulatory services by renovating existing buildings on the medical facility’s campus.

The county would cover the $400 million cost to rebuild the hospital as well as the $60 million it will cost yearly to provide care for people without health insurance.

The UC would not provide any fiscal support but would provide all of the physicians for the facility and set regulations for the standard of care provided.

“We’re in the patient care business on this one,” King said.

The county of Los Angeles and the UC would then work together to create a private non-profit corporation, which would handle the general operations of the hospital and hire all new personnel rather than current county employees.

It is currently undecided where the UC doctors would come from, although both UCLA and UC Irvine have medical programs, and UC Riverside is projected to have one as well by the time the proposed hospital would open in 2012.

Dale Tate, the executive director of UCLA Health Sciences Communication and Government Relations, said that she was not aware of how the UC’s proposed staffing of all physicians may affect the UCLA medical community.

However, Yaroslavsky said, the hospital would begin to make a profit within five years, as Los Angeles county is in better condition than most local governments and has very little debt.

“We believe this would be a good partnership,” Yaroslavsky said.

The board will finalize the agenda for the September meeting next week.