Correction appended
With a potential closure of the Martin Luther King Jr./Drew
Medical Center’s trauma facility looming in the near future,
surrounding medical centers ““ including those affiliated with
UCLA ““ say they would need additional resources to
accommodate an influx of trauma patients.
Having been plagued for decades with faulty patient care, the
King/Drew center, near Watts, has been engrossed in recent
controversy as administrators decide how to handle the
center’s financial and management woes.
County officials proposed Wednesday to have a private consulting
firm manage the day-to-day activities of the medical center and
adjoined university for at least a year.
Dr. Thomas Garthwaite, director of the county’s Department
of Health Services, had previously recommended that the King/Drew
trauma center be shut down so other parts of the hospital can
receive more resources.
But the closure, which the L.A. County Board of Supervisors is
scheduled to discuss in a hearing in November, is faced by
opposition by several state legislators and has many concerned that
thousands of lives would be at stake. King/Drew treats about 2,000
critically injured patients each year.
If the facility closes, the trauma patients would be distributed
among the surrounding trauma centers, said Dr. Gail Anderson,
assistant dean of UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine and medical
director at the Harbor-UCLA Medical Center.
The patients would be absorbed by the St. Francis Medical
Center, three miles from King/Drew, the Harbor-UCLA Medical Center,
11 miles from the hospital, and more minimally, the UCLA Medical
Center, 20 miles away. A new trauma center may also open.
The Harbor-UCLA trauma facility, in Torrance, may have to treat
up to 500 of the King/Drew patients, Anderson said, adding that to
do so, the hospital would need more staff and equipment.
Though trauma victims constitute about 2 to 3 percent of the
patients a hospital will treat, this percentage consumes a lot of
resources which the county would have to provide, Anderson
said.
Officials are also concerned the areas surrounding King/Drew
produce several violence-induced injuries that may prove fatal if
it took the extra minutes drive to treat.
The Harbor-UCLA hospital receives its funding from the county,
but employs UCLA’s faculty and belongs to the
university’s rotating residency program ““ it is
“a major teaching hospital for the UCLA med students,”
Anderson said.
The UCLA Medical Center in Westwood would be less adversely
affected, said Dr. Henry Cryer, head of trauma services at the
center.
When the county had downsized King/Drew last year, Cryer said
the UCLA center had already extended the area from which it accepts
patients.
Still, “we didn’t receive a large number of extra
patients,” Cryer said.
“If this goes through, then the proposed plan would affect
us very little,” he also said.
King/Drew’s troubles do not stop with the possible closure
of its trauma center.
The Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science, part of
the King/Drew complex lost accreditation of its two largest
programs in 2003 ““ radiology and surgery.
The UCLA Medical School also has a partnership with Drew
University, in which up to 24 UCLA medical students are
accepted.
Michael Downer, a spokesman for Drew University, said a closure
of the trauma center would have some effect on the
university’s training abilities.
“Closing any department has an effect on training
programs,” he said, adding that university officials hope for
the best in the upcoming months of uncertainty for the complex.
“(The hospital) is our clinical arm, we are hopeful that
things will work out and the relationship with L.A. County … will
continue to flourish,” Downer said.
The latest patient care lapse occurred last week when a patient
died after a nurse apparently reduced the volume of his heart
monitor and failed to notice that his vital signs were down.
Both Anderson and Cryer say the King/Drew center’s
numerous problems are symptomatic of the state’s ailing
healthcare system.
“It is a concern for a lot of people, because funding for
trauma in general is a problem,” Anderson said. “Its a
concern because ultimately, you can only absorb so much.”
Cryer also added that trauma units surrounding King/Drew would
suffer if many of its trauma patients were uninsured.
“There’s always a limit. … All of us are going to
be in trouble if patient care isn’t solved,” he
said.
Correction: Monday, October 18,
2004
In “Trauma center fate unsure” (News, Oct. 15), the
map should have indicated that the King/Drew medical center is
south of the 105 Freeway, and the St. Francis Medical Center is to
the north, east of Alameda St. in Lynwood.