Los Angeles Health Care Facility Shuttered
By Matthew Paolini
Before its recent closing, Martin Luther King Jr.-Harbor functioned as a public in Los Angeles, CA that was run by the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services. For a while, there had been widely disseminated problems related to general incompetence and mismanagement, which ultimately caused the available number of beds to be reduced to only 42. Over the last three years, over 200 employees had either been fired or transferred for disciplinary reasons.

In 2000, before its crisis and closing, the possessed 537 beds and was the teaching for Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science. Located near high crime areas, the had a very active trauma unit. In 2003, it treated over 2,000 gunshot wounds and other such often deadly injuries.

Martin Luther King Jr.-Harbor Hospital's establishment had its roots in the 1965 Watts Riots when it was determined that inadequate access to adequate healthcare was one of the causative factors to the unrest. Tellingly, the closest public trauma center was more than ten miles away.

One year later, in 1966, a task force was formed to examine the matter. Ground for the new facility was broken in April 1968. The opened in 1972 as a full-service medical center and was viewed as a source of pride and jobs in the community.

Despite the good start, after 2000 a variety of problems hit the hospital. It was known by the dubious nickname of 'Killer King' and was the object of a number of special investigations by local newspapers.

On August 10, subsequent to failing a comprehensive review by the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, 200 million dollars in federal support was canceled. The emergency room was shuttered later that day and the rest of the by August 27. Employees were reassigned to jobs at other county facilities.

At a later Los Angeles County board meeting, a 124-page report compiled by federal inspectors was released that pointed out dozens of errors and failures by employees during the fateful review.

Matt

Paolini is a hospice writer for CityBook.com, the family-safe Los Angeles Yellow Pages, which carries an extensive directory on Los Angeles death and dying.