Emergency room care is no longer an issue at King-Harbor Hospital

by TheBigRuski | August 11, 2007 at 07:50 am

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No longer will an emergency at Martin Luther King Jr.-Harbor Hospital take a back seat. It will have to go elsewhere…and hopefully, grab priority care.

The emergency room of this Los Angeles hospital closed Friday and most of the rest is scheduled to shut down in two weeks as well. This as a result of a federal decision to revoke $200 million in annual funding because of ongoing lapses in care.

That’s the official statement, but I am sure the death of Edith Isabel Rodriguez on May 9th in the King-Harbor emergency room after writhing in pain on the floor for 45 minutes was the final blow.

Rodriguez may just have turned out to be a footnote in the chronicles of King-Harbor’s troubled service record, but in this corner, she is not forgotten…and the death of ignorance is still pending.

- Alexander (TheBigRuski), TheScroogeReport.com

King-Harbor fails final check, will close soon
The ER is shut down, and the rest will follow within two weeks. Reactions range from grief to relief.

Los Angeles Times

Martin Luther King Jr.-Harbor Hospital shut down its emergency room Friday night and will close entirely within two weeks, a startlingly swift reaction to a federal decision to revoke $200 million in annual funding because of ongoing lapses in care.

The extraordinary developments mark an end to nearly four years of failed attempts to reform the historic institution, treasured by many African Americans as a symbol of hope and progress after the 1965 Watts riots.

Los Angeles County health services director Dr. Bruce Chernof announced the closure plan Friday afternoon, hours after the hospital learned that it had failed its final test, a top-to-bottom review by the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. The hospital, formerly known as King/Drew, has shown itself unable to meet minimum standards for patient care since January 2004, according to the regulators.

Effective noon Friday, the hospital declared an “internal disaster” and redirected each ambulance to one any of nine surrounding hospitals. At around About 5 p.m., staff members posted notices saying the emergency room was closed to walk-in patients.

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