Hullabaloo Over Hospital Boo-Boos

We have reached the point where Los Angeles County officials could publish a book on how not to run a public hospital. It should be printed as quickly as possible and sent to every elected body in the United States.

I hadn’t even been at the Board of Supervisors meeting for 30 minutes Tuesday when I felt like I might need medical attention myself. It started as a migraine and then, as one gas-bag politician after another made a perfectly useless speech about Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center, I began experiencing chest pains.

I was thinking of pinning a note to my shirt for paramedics:

Please don’t take me to King/Drew.

You, as taxpaying sap, must be wondering why you keep hearing about one horror after another at this county-run hospital near Watts. You have to wonder why the hospital’s well-documented problems have not been fixed, and why there is controversy over the supervisors’ latest scheme to close the trauma center so the rest of King/Drew can be saved.

Are they amputating the right leg?

Hard to say. But after watching the crack quintet operate on Tuesday, I was left with this question: If you can’t run a meeting, how can you run a hospital?

For starters, the supervisors had already decided behind closed doors and without public input that they would vote unanimously to begin shutting the trauma unit. That sounds to me like a violation of the Brown Act, if not the public’s trust, and, naturally, 200 angry people showed up to scream and shout.

“The Salem witch trials don’t have anything on us,” Supervisor Gloria Molina said at one point.

No one was burned at the stake Tuesday, but the thought seemed to have occurred to many in the audience.

“You’re not allowed to boo,” Molina told the restless mob, ordering deputies to disappear the rabble-rousers.

Not allowed to boo? Where were we, North Korea?

King/Drew treats a ton of trauma patients, many with gunshot wounds. With six emergency rooms having shut down recently in L.A. County, people in the audience rightly wanted to know if the supervisors had carefully weighed the risk of forcing trauma patients to more distant hospitals while they’re bleeding to death.

I didn’t hear any answers that were particularly reassuring, to be honest.

Supervisor Yvonne Braithwaite Burke, no tower of strength in tackling King/Drew’s problems, noticed last week that her knees were knocking again. She had been all for closing the trauma unit, then started to doubt herself and finally buckled, announcing she wanted to delay a vote.

“If she had done a better job,” community activist Najee Ali told me, “we wouldn’t have reached this point.”

Perhaps some history is in order:

King/Drew opened in response to the 1965 Watts riots. Politicians ever since have been fiercely defensive of the place -- which has a staff that’s largely African American -- ignoring its long-festering problems. Other politicos and county administrators have cowered at the thought of addressing the civil service rot and mismanagement at King/Drew.

As a result, these do-nothings have sabotaged the efforts of good employees and put the lives of patients at risk, creating a mess that has included crackdowns by federal and state medical inspectors. The lapses in care contributed to at least five deaths in one year.

State Assemblywoman Jackie Goldberg took the stage Tuesday and told the supervisors she was embarrassed about not having gotten involved herself.

“I also am embarrassed,” she added, “that all of you let it get to this point.”

I was embarrassed that Goldberg, three other members of the state Assembly, two state senators, and three City Council members squandered their time at the microphone shamelessly pointing fingers and blathering on.

Where were they when things began falling apart at King/Drew? I didn’t see them when the L.A. County health system was getting crushed by a growing population without health insurance, and supervisors made us swallow a tax increase to keep emergency rooms open.

Now all of a sudden they’re going to team up with the supervisors and save the day?

They’ll get their chance. The board voted to hold a public hearing before amputating.

But I have my doubts after this high-level exchange between Molina and state Sen. Gil Cedillo:

Cedillo: “Supervisor Molina, you’re absolutely right, we have to deal with the facts; the fact is that history tells us that when there’s a will, there’s a way ... “

Molina: “Let me remind you, one other cliche. Leadership starts at home.”

No booing allowed.