Los Angeles News

LOS ANGELES (CBS) ― Ambulance traffic at private hospitals surrounding Martin Luther King Jr.-Harbor Hospital increased over the weekend after the closure of the MLK facility's emergency room but not beyond anticipated levels, county officials said Tuesday.

Carol Meyer, director of the county Department of Emergency Services, told the Board of Supervisors the number of ambulances arriving at seven other area hospitals increased above average by 19 on Saturday and 30 on Sunday.

According to Meyer:

-- Centinela Freeman Regional Medical Center had an increase of four on Saturday and a decrease of four on Sunday;
-- California Hospital Medical Center had an increase of one on Saturday and three on Sunday;
-- White Memorial Medical Center had an increase of two on Saturday and a decrease of one on Sunday;
-- St. Francis Medical Center had an increase of 14 on Saturday and an increase of 18 on Sunday;
-- Memorial Hospital of Gardena had an increase of two on Saturday and six on Sunday;
-- Downey Regional Medical Center had no inprease on Saturday and an increase of eight on Sunday; and
-- Long Beach Memorial Hospital had a decrease of four on Saturday and an increase by two on Sunday.

Lakewood Regional Medical Center and Kaiser Permanente Bellflower provided no data for the weekend, she said.

King-Harbor had an average of 30 to 32 ambulance runs a day.

"It's pretty much what we would expect," Meyer said. County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky said the numbers contradict testimony by officials from the neighboring hospitals claiming that their emergency departments had seen dramatic leaps in ambulance visits.

"If you added up all these additional ambulances that all these hospitals claimed they got on Saturday and Sunday, it was far more ambulances that King gets on an average on any Saturday or Sunday," Yaroslavsky said. "It just didn't add up.

"When we sit here and listen to bull, we need to expose it. If we don't, we are going to be making some costly decisions that are not justified."

Dr. Bruce Chernof, county health director, told the board that the Department of Health Services will present weekly reports on ambulance traffic.

King-Harbor failed its latest inspection by the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, meaning it will lose $200 million in federal funding, more than half of its annual budget. The hospital's emergency room closed on Friday, and inpatient services will be phased out over the next two weeks, with the facility being reduced to an urgent care center.

As part of the hospital closure plan, the county has agreed to pay up to $16.3 million to nearby hospitals to help cover costs of increased patient loads.

County supervisors, in a special meeting held Monday, said they want the hospital reopened within one year, and they directed health officials to find a private operator within three months to ensure medical care is available to the mostly low-income residents near the facility.

CMS said the hospital failed the most recent inspection in eight of 23 categories, governing body, patients' rights, quality assessment/performance improvement, nursing services, pharmaceutical services, physical environment, infection control and emergency services.

Last summer, CMS officials determined the hospital did not meet nine of the government's 23 conditions for federal funding. To avoid losing federal funding over that finding, the county Board of Supervisors downsized the hospital and placed it under the management of Harbor-UCLA Medical Center personnel.

Clinical specialties, including high-risk obstetrics, neonatology, pediatrics, neurosurgery, cardio-thoracic surgery, ophthalmology and dental, were moved to Harbor-UCLA, leaving the revamped MLK-Harbor with an emergency room and 48 beds for in-patient services.

The county-run hospital was built to serve the county's poor and uninsured in the aftermath of the 1965 Watts riots.

The long-troubled hospital repeatedly has been the subject of news stories chronicling breakdowns in care. It recently came under fire over the death of Edith Isabel Rodriguez, who was ignored by emergency room staff as she writhed in pain, ultimately succumbing to a perforated bowel.

Another MLK-Harbor patient, Juan Ponce, languished for four days in the emergency room with a brain tumor without getting help. Eventually, family members took him elsewhere.

(© 2007 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)