Opinion: King-Harbor diagnoses

He says his job is to ‘build bridges across America’s quicksand.’ Evidently, what this KFI radio host thinks is the way to do it is to lie down for every right-wing lie possible, and the Times loves it, in its most recent editorial incarnation, because it puts a black face on something very nasty.

Metro Care: reducing the number of beds, making it a community hospital, and placing contract MDs in the ER, where they are limited to 2 attending physicians at any time, instead of the full complement needed for a high risk, busy, crowded ER, but taking away the beds and the subspecialties, leaving the hospital without the ability to handle volume and acuity. Those King docs that did fight, but were not listened to..., did try to explain the supes why their downsizing was not a good idea. Exactly the result we were forecasting, including the comment that a single bad outcome would be the deathknell for a hospital placed right where it’s needed. At the same time, the heartless leaving a woman writhing on the floor just because she’s a repeat visitor, always complaining, obese, homeless, and with a bad history...that’s what the medical profession calls burnout: having become insensitive for having seen too much, having been ‘used and abused’ by the people you take care of...Could the nurse have called the MDs present inside the ER for an urgent consult? Sure. Did she, and they would not come - too busy, only 2 hands, 50 people in line ...? Possible, given the shortage of ER MDs that King has had since the changes. We don’t know. Why did she die? Why would the other patient be kept there for 4 days? King used to have a stellar neurosurgery service, but with only 40-some beds, there’s no room to admit to the floor, the neurosurgeons are gone. The changes, again. Not all for the better. But then, where are those famous 4 ambulances ready to instantly take patients to the other network hospitals? Are there really at Harbor, or USC, or Califonia, or St Francis, the beds to accept the patients? Mr Ponce was actually waiting for one of those network beds, but his priority was probably low, coming from another hospital. We told the supes, and DHS, and administration, that downsizing was not a great idea, because we knew the value of the really good units, and how they would carry the hospital requalification. None of those people would listen, because, as ‘King docs’ we had no credibility. They all knew better. And they silenced those of us who would speak up. I am so sorry. Sorry for the dead and the hurt, more so for those who will come looking for help BECAUSE THERE IS NO ALTERNATIVE AND NO REAL OPTION WITHIN EASY REACH AND NO SPACE ELSEWHERE and they will find less and less. Also: Do you truly believe that any hospital can survive the level of scrutiny that King has been under? Kaiser patients have to sign agreements of arbitration for bad outcomes, before being treated, and a woman can die in her wheelchair stationed in the waiting room, without being seen for an aortic aneurism… but you did not see that hospital be on the press for the rest of the foreseeable future… just a thought. Roberta Bruni, MD