The pending closure this month of Martin Luther King Jr.-Harbor Hospital on the heels of its emergency room shut-down Aug. 10 hasn't overwhelmed surrounding hospitals yet.
But the decision to shutter the long-troubled facility indefinitely has taken a psychological toll on the community, say local residents.
The King-Harbor Medical Center, formerly known as King-Drew, is expected to be fully closed by late August after the hospital failed its recent federal inspection, losing $200 million in annual funding which accounts for approximately half the facility's budget. Built after the 1965 Watts riots, the Willowbrook hospital has been unable to meet minimum federal standards for patient care for more than three years.
Carol Lee Thorpe, vice president of community services at nearby St. Francis Medical Center in Lynwood, said contingency plans set up with several area hospitals "worked very well over the weekend" as SFMC provided base-station coordination for 9-1-1 transports re-routed from King-Harbor to collaborating hospitals.
"While contingency plans were effective for the immediate healthcare needs of patients transported by ambulance, we are working closely with Los Angeles County to ensure that resources are available to provide healthcare services to 'walk-in' patients and those very sick patients who require extended inpatient care," said Thorpe, who noted that ambulance transports account for approximately 40 percent of a hospital's ER census.
"The goal of everyone involved," declared Thorpe, "is to ensure that the residents of South Los Angeles have access to emergency and hospital services; and that this event does not initiate a domino effect negatively impacting essential hospitals throughout the region."
As one who has ministered in the Watts area for 18 years, Capuchin Franciscan Father Peter Banks, St. Lawrence of Brindisi Church pastor, said parishioners are saddened by the King-Harbor closure but in most cases avoided seeking healthcare services at the problem-plagued hospital.
"We definitely need a hospital in the area for the poor, but we need a good hospital," said Father Banks. "Changes should have been made especially in the administrative staff years ago. If the county and the people in charge had taken an honest look at King-Harbor and made appropriate changes, we would not have lost our hospital."
He recently approached representatives from L.A. Councilwoman Janice Hahn's office offering to serve on a prospective board to review plans to reopen the hospital. County officials have said they hope to reopen King-Harbor under a private operator, perhaps next year.
The Catholic hospital presence in the southern part of Los Angeles has diminished over the past decade. In recent years, the Centinela Freeman Health System was formed from Inglewood's Daniel Freeman Hospital merger with Centinela Hospital to serve the Inglewood and South Los Angeles community through Centinela Freeman Regional Medical Center in three locations, including the former Freeman facility on Prairie Avenue.
Currently, in addition to St. Francis (sponsored by the Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul), the closest Catholic hospitals serving the King-Harbor Medical Center area are Little Company of Mary Hospital in Torrance (affiliated with Providence Health System and conducted by the Little Company of Mary Sisters) and St. Mary Medical Center in Long Beach (conducted by the Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word, and a member of Catholic Healthcare West).
St. Bernadette Church Deacon Mark Race, who grew up in the Willowbrook neighborhood and watched the King hospital being built, said the facility's closure is "going to devastate that community" since "there's nowhere else nearby to go to for an emergency."
Also, said Race, the hospital's loss triggers feelings of hopelessness among the impoverished residents. "It will affect the community in a negative way by [resurrecting] old feelings that nobody cares and there's nothing you can do, and that's just the way it is," said Race, who recently co-founded the Faith, Hope and Charity Catholic Cancer Ministry along with his wife, Vickie.
Anderson Shaw, director of the African American Catholic Center for Evangelization based at St. Eugene Church in South Los Angeles, agreed that the hospital's closure will be devastating, "possibly as devastating as what happened in New Orleans" after the flooding caused by hurricane Katrina.
"It is mind blowing to think we've gone this long and haven't found a solution to the problem," said Shaw. "I'm hopeful they can come up with a solution to provide services. If not, we're looking at some pretty bleak days." |