Hospital Workers Hold Rally to Protest Proposed Cuts

Calling for a “miracle of responsibility,” officials at Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center on Thursday staged a rally appealing for the additional public funds the county needs to prevent an estimated $20.6 million in anticipated cuts to outpatient care at the Willowbrook hospital.

Dr. Reed Tuckson, president of Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science, said several hundred staff members and others attended the noontime gathering, which was also aimed at rebutting a government investigation alleging physician incompetence at the hospital.

The state’s Medical Board last week filed administrative charges against four physicians at King for “gross negligence” that allegedly led to the death of a deputy sheriff in 1992. The Los Angeles County district attorney’s office also circulated a lengthy report among top county officials listing other “preventable deaths” at the hospital.

In the section detailing the preventable deaths, the report listed the case of an 18-year-old woman who was brought to the hospital after being shot in the head but had her jugular veins cut by King physicians trying to open a small airway in her throat.

Tuckson said the woman, in fact, did not die and was one of five former King patients who addressed the rally and praised the hospital’s care.

Tuckson said rally leaders appealed to President Clinton and Gov. Pete Wilson to find the money needed to keep King functioning, as well as the Hubert Humphrey comprehensive health center and smaller public clinics in the area. Los Angeles County officials are expected to decide within a week whether to close many of the health centers because of a fiscal crisis.