When 36-year-old Carlos Reyna was suddenly stricken with seizures, he had no idea how close he was to death. He credits the medical staff at Martin Luther King Jr./Charles R. Drew Medical Center with saving his life.
"It turned out that I had a brain tumor," said Reyna. "I'm so grateful that MLK hospital is here. I didn't have any health insurance and without their care I wouldn't be here today."
Reyna is one of the many parishioners at Our Lady of Victory/Sacred Heart Church in Compton who are fighting to keep the 38-year-old, financially-troubled hospital and trauma center open. Trinitarian Father Stan Bosch, pastor at the clustered parishes, has led church members in silent prayer walks around the hospital, and will "continue to do so until our hospital is saved."
"We walk to bring down the walls of apathy and ignorance," Father Bosch said. "Unless they [politicians] see the need and concern in the community, they will turn a deaf ear."
Father Bosch, part of an interfaith coalition of Compton pastors working to save King-Drew, noted that he and his associate pastors are the only Catholic presence at King-Drew, a hospital that serves many Latinos.
"We're the ones on the front lines responding to trauma. We know the great need for this hospital in this community," he noted.
He said the church's involvement in this issue is important because "we want people in the neighborhood to know they have the power to change. When someone gets hurt, are we supposed to tell them, 'We love you but we can't help you'?"
Built in the aftermath of the 1965 Watts riots, the hospital was established to address the grossly inadequate system of health care for the predominately African-American community.
After a number of hospital deaths caused by staff negligence, a national hospital accrediting group has recommended pulling the hospital's seal of approval, which could lead to the closure of doctor training programs and the loss of nearly $15 million in private insurance payments.
In response, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted in September to close the trauma center and fix the long-troubled hospital. The choice, they say, is do this or lose $200 million in federal funding, which is half the hospital's annual budget.
"The county, after years of indefensible neglect, institutional infighting and political intimidation, has finally run out of choices," wrote State Assemblymember Mark Ridley-Thomas. "In the case of King-Drew, with its extreme staffing problems and shortage of experienced physicians, the concentration of as many as 12 doctors and nurses on a single trauma patient deprives the majority of patients of adequate medical care."
But local residents and community activists are crying foul to the proposed trauma center closure, claiming it is just a precursor to closing the entire hospital --- and recreating the same conditions in health care that helped fuel the 1965 riots.
"The closing is sending the message to our kids that their lives are not important," said Father Bosch. "People say all people in this community are killing each other but not only is that not true, it's also racist."
King-Drew serves an area that is largely African-American and Latino and poor. Its trauma center is the second busiest in Los Angeles County --- after County-USC hospital in Boyle Heights --- and one of a small number that specializes in immediate life-threatening injuries, such as gunshot wounds.
The trauma center currently treats about 2,150 patients of the hospital's 45,000 yearly emergency patients, and has been used as a training hospital by the military for combat physicians and other military medical personnel.
"They say there's not enough money to keep both the hospital and trauma center going, but why isn't anyone considering closing Harbor-UCLA in Torrance or other public hospitals," asked Father Bosch.
The neighborhoods near King/Drew have much higher rates of gunshot victims than the areas near County-USC and Harbor-UCLA.
"It would be a disaster if the place should close down," said Our Lady of Victory parishioner Barth Okor. "The community cannot do without this health institution."
At a recent Sunday Mass at Our Lady of Victory, person after person testified to the importance of keeping King-Drew open, saying the proximity of the hospital had saved many lives and provided services they couldn't get elsewhere.
"King-Drew saved my daughter's life. If it wasn't for them she wouldn't be standing here with me today," said Maria Dejesus Rodriguez.
Rodriguez, a South Gate resident, went into labor during month six of her pregnancy. Her doctor in Paramount told her they were not equipped to handle her high-risk pregnancy and rushed her to King-Drew's neo-natal unit where her two-pound daughter was delivered.
"They were able to deliver her and provide the specialized care she needed to keep her alive," she said. "They're the only hospital in the area that has specialists in important areas like neo-natal care and trauma.
"And look at my daughter," she said pointing to the lovely ten-year-old. "Today she's healthy and strong."
Eleven-year-old Joel Mercado relies on King-Drew to keep his chronic asthma under control and provide the medicines he needs without cost. Despite receiving his medical care at a public hospital, he said at King-Drew he is able to see the same doctors who "know me and take care of me."
"We get good care there," said Joel's mother Alicia Perez. "They take care of us and it's not packed like County-USC."
"It's not just the violent stuff that gets treated at King-Drew," added healthcare consultant and Our Lady of Victory parishioner Yvette Manard. "There is nowhere else for people to go. It's absolutely criminal and insane to be closing that trauma center. Many people that use the hospital have no other means."
Manard, who trained at King-Drew while completing her master's degree in public health, noted that with the closing of other nearby hospitals and emergency rooms, the closure of King-Drew will inevitably create a major crisis in the community.
Just last week it was announced that Robert F. Kennedy Medical Center in Hawthorne will shut down for good on Dec. 31, making it the sixth Los Angeles County emergency room to close its doors due to financial problems in the last year. Since 1980, 11 medical centers have dropped out of the countywide trauma network, leaving only 12 to serve the entire system.
Officials at St. Francis Medical Center in Lynwood --- the remaining emergency room closest to King-Drew --- have publicly said they will not be able to handle the increased number of trauma cases that will result from the closure of King-Drew's trauma center.
"If a patient that normally would come to Drew shows up at St. Francis, he may find they can't treat him either because they already have every physician, every surgeon, every trauma nurse available working on a patient," St. Francis emergency physician Dr. S. Daniel Higgins recently told the California Medical Association. "That's where the real domino effect comes in. There's nowhere for these patients to go."
The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors is expected to approve this week a $13 million contract for a private firm to take over the management of King-Drew hospital. The final decision on closing the hospital's trauma center is expected later this year. |