Los Angeles News

LOS ANGELES (CBS) ― The Board of Supervisors declined to take any action during an emergency session Monday on King-Drew Medical Center, which is scheduled to lose federal funding for repeated lapses in patient care.

County supervisors met behind closed doors for two and a half hours, and will reconvene in closed session tomorrow to discuss legal options, according to health services director Dr. Bruce Chernof.

The county-owned hospital was notified by the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services late Friday that it had failed a "make-or-break" inspection and would lose its federal funding -- some $200 million, or about half the hospital's budget -- at the end of the year.

"We are deeply disappointed that KDMC did not pass the CMS survey," Chernof said. "We stand for high-quality patient care that meets national standards."

Chernof met with county supervisors and lawyers to determine how health officials should proceed.

"These options, once they're fully understood, will be the basis by which the department will bring forward the critical options for dealing with the future of King-Drew Medical Center."

Supervisor Yvonne B. Burke, whose district includes King-Drew, said she is fully committed to maintaining services in the community.

"The first and foremost priority of King-Drew Medical Center is to the welfare and safety of its patients. We will continue to work with the hospital to restore community confidence and elevate patient care to national standards," Burke said.

"I have total confidence in the leadership abilities of Department of Health Services director Dr. Bruce Chernof and King-Drew CEO Antionette Epps, and the decision by CMS in no way reflects their ability to lead the hospital," she said.

Supervisor Don Knabe said the board will look at every option to keep the hospital open.

"The emergency health services provided by King-Drew Medical Center are absolutely critical to the communities served by this hospital," Knabe said.

"In the larger picture, these services are also critical to the safety net of our entire county. Los Angeles County has suffered the loss of several emergency rooms and hundreds of inpatient beds in the past decade as private hospitals have shut down. Losing similar services at King-Drew would push the strain onto the few other hospitals remaining in that part of our county."

The hospital failed to meet nine of the government's 23 conditions for federal funding, falling below minimum standards in such areas as nursing, surgical services, infection control and pharmacy services.

"There were no appropriately trained and competent staff on the 3E unit, assigned to watch the heart monitors of seriously ill patients who required cardio-respiratory monitoring," said a letter from federal authorities, describing one of the areas in which King-Drew was found to be inadequate.

"This is especially troublesome, because previously documented cases showed that patients died when nurses at King-Drew failed to heed heart monitor warnings."

Authorities also found patients were placed at serious risk of exposure to blood-borne pathogens, such as hepatitis B, because testing machines were visibly stained with blood in a number of units.

According to CMS, county officials can appeal the decision by requesting a hearing before an administrative law judge with the Department of Health and Human Services. That request must be made within the next 60 days.

King-Drew is a 252 bed hospital that serves many of the county's indigent and uninsured.

Last year, about 11,000 inpatients and 167,000 outpatients were treated at the facility in unincorporated Willowbrook, near Watts.

Supervisors had said previously that if King-Drew lost its federal funding, they would have to close it, transform it into a clinic or turn it over to a private firm to operate. The hospital had already scaled back services, including its emergency room, which closed last year.

Supervisor Gloria Molina, who had long maintained that King-Drew could be revamped, now believes the county should hand it over to a private firm to run.

"I have no pride of ownership at this point," she told the Los Angeles Times in remarks reported over the weekend. "At this point, I'd give it to them, OK? I'd give it to them as long as they would take indigent patients."

But Molina said she didn't know whether such a plan would even work. The supervisors had been so confident that the hospital was improving, they had not been focusing on alternatives should it fail the inspection, she said.

"Our contingency plan was prayers and hopes and aspirations that we would pass," she told The Times.

Molina harshly criticized Navigant Consulting Inc., the hospital turnaround firm that the county paid more than $17 million to overhaul King-Drew.

"Navigant was the biggest waste of time," she told The Times. "They said, `We can fix it.' They were more interested in keeping the money rolling in."

Representatives for Navigant were not immediately available for comment. Rep. Juanita Millender-McDonald, D-Los Angeles, plans to hold a community meeting Monday at King-Drew, where she is expected to report that the hospital could still be saved.

She told The Times that she received a call Friday afternoon from Mark McClellan, outgoing head of the Medicare agency, informing her of the hospital's failure to pass the inspection. But McClellan, she said, assured her there is still some "wiggle room" for King-Drew.

"Dr. McClellan is still open to any recommendations or suggestions," she told The Times, although she declined to specify what the "wiggle room" might be.

Assemblyman Mervyn Dymally, D-Compton, also asked officials to find a way to save the hospital.

"I'm calling for all parties involved, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, the unions and the hospital staff, to exercise a measure of calm and to come together to develop a plan to save the hospital," he said.

Dymally said he plans to meet with Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez, D-Los Angeles, to discuss the situation.

Community activists in South Los Angeles appealed to county officials to save the hospital.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson of the Los Angeles Urban Policy Roundtable said officials should appeal the funding cut-off decision and apply for reinstatement of its Medicare contract.

"The county Board of Supervisors must do everything, and I can't emphasize this enough, everything in their power to improve, correct the problems at King hospital and keep it open as a public hospital facility," Hutchinson said outside the hospital.

He said turning over the hospital to a private company was not a realistic option, because it would turn health care into a "profit operation serving only those who can pay."

(© 2006 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)