Some, such as the Rev. Jesse Jackson, view the recent closure of
South Los Angeles’ Martin Luther King/Drew Medical Center as
dangerous for the inner city community it is meant to serve.
Others, including Thomas Garthwaite, director of the county
Department of Health Services, see it as timely and, ultimately,
necessary. The real question is whether the trauma center should
remain open for South Los Angeles residents.
I would be a fool to write that the King/Drew trauma center is
free of troubles. It has clear flaws that need to be addressed
immediately (and should have been confronted years ago).
But the fact remains that the obvious faults of the county
Department of Health Services shouldn’t be repaired at the
expense of people’s welfare and lives. Instead, the trauma
unit should be reformed, not closed down.
The problems at King/Drew are big ones. The trauma unit’s
carelessness, particularly its poorly trained personnel, is one of
them. Allegedly, a nurse indirectly caused the death of a patient
when she reportedly turned down the volume on a patient’s
heart monitor. As if that weren’t enough, a doctor mistakenly
left a metal clamp “the length of a ballpoint pen” in a
patient’s arm for one week last July, according to the Los
Angeles Times. Finally, the hospital failed to pass an inspection
after demonstrating improper treatment of aggressive mental health
patients, which included shooting them with Tasers.
Now, Garthwaite states that even getting King/Drew “back
to an average American hospital” will take at least a couple
of years, after speaking with consultants who found inherent
problems embedded within King/Drew, according to the Los Angeles
Times.
Ultimately, King/Drew has failed to accomplish its mission,
which it explains on its Web site as providing “comprehensive
medical care that is accessible, acceptable and adaptable to the
needs of the community we serve.” But is the solution to
terminate all efforts entirely?
Many people, namely 1.5 million South Los Angeles inhabitants,
will be put at risk without access to King/Drew’s trauma
unit, the sole Level One center certified within a 94-square-mile
region, according to the Department of Health Services. The Los
Angeles Times stated that the trauma center was needed for 2,150
patients with critical wounds in 2003 alone. What will happen to
these people in 2005? If the trauma unit is closed down, they may
face a worse fate.
More importantly, the impending closure marks an unfortunate
step away from the hospital’s history and original purpose.
Opened March 27, 1972, the hospital became a reality after more
than two decades of pressure from the residents of Watts,
Willowbrook, Compton and the downtown Los Angeles areas.
These residents felt that their community was in critical need
of health care ““ most importantly, a hospital. But their
requests fell to deaf ears. Only after a comprehensive report was
issued, which helped connect the unrest in the low-income Watts
community and the lack of health care resources for the people in
Watts, did the hospital construction begin.
“Martin Luther King Jr. General Hospital,” the
hospital’s Web site concludes, “rose as a living,
serving monument to the long, ardent struggles for life, liberty
and the pursuit of health and happiness for all people.”
King/Drew hospital should fulfill its historical promise to its
people by reopening its trauma unit to serve the people who need it
most.
Ultimately, South Central residents need more options, not fewer
““ which means the trauma unit should remain. But reforms
should be administered and be taken very seriously in order to
create a hospital that’s not only available but also
trustworthy and up to standards.
These changes will definitely come at a cost. But health care
should be at the top of our financial responsibilities. It is
absolutely essential that Los Angeles residents view insufficient
health care as more than a burden ““ it’s also an
important institution that needs reform. And in this case,
it’s a more than worthy investment.
Fried is a second-year history student. E-mail her at
ifried@media.ucla.edu. Send general comments to
viewpoint@media.ucla.edu.