County Orders King Hospital Investigation

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors Tuesday ordered a health department investigation of Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center in response to what they described as “serious charges of substandard health care” at the 430-bed, county-operated hospital in Watts.

The motion ordering an investigation followed a series of articles in The Times about King, which the supervisors said pointed out problems of “poor administration, a lack of highly skilled medical staff and a severe shortage of space, staff and funding to adequately deal with the hospital’s increasing patient load.”

Supervisor Kenneth Hahn, who pushed hard for construction of the hospital after the Watts riots in 1965, said he was so distressed by charges of poor health care at King that he called top county health and administrative officials at home over the Labor Day weekend and ordered them to begin immediately looking into problems and drafting recommendations.

In an interview, Hahn said he wants to “tighten down the ship” at King, especially with respect to doctors who may be working fewer hours than they are paid for.

The other supervisors who were at Tuesday’s meeting--Deane Dana and Ed Edelman--backed Hahn by approving a motion to make the investigation of King a “high priority.”

Shaking his finger and raising his voice, Hahn told Richard Dixon, the county’s chief administrative officer: “Take this story as a positive thing. Do a good, thorough review of our system.”

Dixon pledged to do so and added, “While the article makes a number of allegations--and there is no doubt in my mind, I’m sorry to say, that a number of problems have foundation in truth--I think it is important to point out there are many dedicated employees, physicians and nurses at King that do a very good job for very needy people.”

William Delgardo, King’s veteran administrator, said after the board meeting that he has “no qualms” about an investigation of the allegations by any agency.

“I think they’ll see we’re doing a good job,” he said. “Nobody ever said we didn’t have problems. But they’ve been blown out of proportion and taken out of context.”

In a series of articles, The Times documented that a disproportionate number of patients are dying at King, compared to the county’s two other major acute-care public hospitals. One recent study of hospital deaths among elderly patients throughout the nation ranked King in the worst 50 of 5,577 hospitals.

Systemic Failures

Medical experts who were asked by The Times to review a dozen cases of patient care concluded that there are systemic failures within the hospital, including lack of good management and supervision by qualified senior attending physicians. Hospital officials acknowledged that many full-time senior doctors at King have off-site private practices.

Robert Gates, director of health services for Los Angeles County, which oversees and operates King, was not available for comment Tuesday because he was in Sacramento on county business. But he sent supervisors a memorandum saying that he had already ordered the inspection and audit division of the health department to begin a full investigation of King.

In addition, he said he has directed a top aide, Carl Williams, to “personally take charge” of exploring avenues for relief of problems at King.

One possibility, Gates stated in a memorandum, would be to divert some of the patients now seeking care at King to other county or private hospitals. He said he will also explore “whether or not the hospital should continue, for the present, as a trauma center.”

Williams, assistant director for hospitals, testified at the board meeting that he was “mad” about reported problems at King.

‘Emergency Meeting’

Arnold Butler, a member of the Martin Luther King Jr. Hospital Financial Authority, said in an interview that he was “shocked and also very enlightened” by the disclosures in The Times. He said he is seeking to convene an “emergency meeting” of the community-based authority--which is trying to float bonds to build a new trauma center at King--to explore “quality of care issues . . . and supervision.”

“We’ve been dealing with the hospital from the fiscal standpoint,” Butler said. “But there’s a human factor here that we have not been exposed to. . . . A number of people are losing their lives.”