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Trauma and Emergency
Room Care Must Be Saved
Harbor-UCLA, MLK-Drew and County-USC are key allies in trauma care
safety net |
Editorial
Los Angeles,
CA
October 1, 2002 |
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The Healthcare crisis
facing Los Angeles County is the most severe in the County’s
history. Faced with a $750 million deficit, the Department of Health
Services (DHS) is closing clinics and preparing to downsize
hospitals. The Board of Supervisors has already voted to close 16
clinics this year in an effort to bring health spending in line with
budget restraints and Harbor-UCLA remains on the chopping block, and
the axe is about to fall.
These cuts in services will effect every man, woman and child in the
County of Los Angeles. County hospitals don't just service the poor.
They save people's lives from every walk of life and every
socio-economic class. Each of us is just one heart attack away from
being transported to a county hospital. It is not just the drunk
driver who gets sent to a county hospital. It is also the innocent
teenager who gets hit that needs urgent care. It is not the drive-by
shooter. It is also the innocent victim walking home.
Downsizing Harbor-UCLA, or any county hospital, would be a fatal
error for our emergency and trauma network, and potentially, for
hundreds-of-thousands of residents. Harbor-UCLA is a critical
component of our countywide trauma system, especially in matters of
homeland security, acting as the trauma center of first resort for
the Ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles, LAX and the entire section
of south LA County. It is the only Level I trauma center in the
South Bay.
Harbor-UCLA is a key component in our nation's Homeland Security
strategy in responding to acts of terrorism. God forbid terrorists
attack our ports, the third largest in the world or LAX the nation's
third busiest airport. Our County's trauma centers and emergency
rooms would be the first line of defense in responding to attacks on
American soil, here in Los Angeles County. Harbor-UCLA is front and
center.
Downsizing the hospital would quickly cripple the entire system of
public and private hospitals causing many preventable deaths as
patients wait in line for life-saving care, or crisscross the county
looking for an open emergency room. This scenario can and must be
prevented. Our healthcare delivery system must be restructured to
provide quality and timely emergency care to all of our residents,
while still offering exceptional non-emergency services.
Consolidation of specialty services within each County hospital for
a more centralized delivery system of non-critical medical
procedures will not only encourage better care in non-emergent
medicine, it will eliminate the costly duplication of services
incapacitating our current system. It is far better to travel a few
extra miles for non-emergency medical care than to close a major
hospital, removing all care and increasing the burden on the rest of
the system.
On October 29th, the Board of Supervisors could decide Harbor-UCLA
Hospital’s fate. Before this happens we must give the doctors,
nurses and administrators an opportunity to streamline services that
will reduce the County’s cost of running their facilities. The
downtown bureaucrats have not asked the creative minds in the field
to look at how best to operate County hospitals. Instead, DHS bean
counters have devised a scheme that allows them to justify closing
Harbor-UCLA without looking at the realistic effect that closing
Harbor-UCLA would have on the local community and the entire County
safety net.
These same bureaucrats have refused to consider several creative
solutions that could be instituted to increase revenue for our
trauma care network. For example, the County could enter into
leasing agreements with private business to supply senior assisted
living facilities or other medically related housing to fill the
hundreds of empty beds within our closed hospital wings throughout
the county. Also, excess land at County hospitals could be used to
build medical office buildings for the hundreds of private
physicians who work at our hospitals. We need to quickly review all
of the available options that could bring a significant amount of
revenue to each County facility, yet the DHS refuses to consider
them.
Our system can be restructured. Our Health Department spending must
be brought in-line with our core responsibilities of ensuring trauma
and emergency care. We cannot allow the closure of any major
hospital, especially Harbor-UCLA, to occur without looking at all
the options and the realistic effects it will have on our entire
system of hospitals. Our safety depends on it. Our lives depend on
it. October 29, 2002 is too soon to make such a drastic and
far-reaching decision.
DON KNABE
Supervisor, Fourth District
County of Los Angeles
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