August 14, 2007

Community Reflects on Hospital's Legacy

Jordan Davis

For many in South Los Angeles, King-Harbor Hospital (formerly the King-Drew Medical Center) was a symbol of justice and a source of pride. KPCC's Jordan Davis looks at the hospital's legacy.

Jordan Davis: Standing before protestors in yellow "Save King Hospital" T-shirts, Reverend Reginald Pope of Bethel Missionary Baptist Church quoted the black poet Langston Hughes.

Reverend Reginald Pope: He said, "What happens to a dream deferred ..."

Davis: Eighteen hours before, workers had boarded up the red signs that directed patients to the King-Harbor Emergency Room.

Pope: On Friday we got another word that one of our dreams has been deferred. So let us pray ...

Davis: For demonstrators on the hospital's front lawn, there was a cruel irony to the hospital's closing. It came on the eve of the 42nd anniversary of the Watts Riots. Congresswoman Maxine Waters:

Congresswoman Maxine Waters: It was from that rebellion that this hospital was born. There was a McCone Commission report. It talked about the fact that people from these communities had to travel a long distance all the way over to what was known as Big County Hospital in East L.A., and that many people died along the way.

Davis: But troubles mounted. Lapses in patient care attracted headlines. The hospital took on the ominous nickname – "Killer King." Yet, Jose Gonzales, a South L.A. health care activist, says many of the King hospital's defenders saw any attempt at reform as an attack on the hospital's memory.

Jose Gonzales: None of us wanted to change it from Martin Luther King Jr. That's part of its history. That's part of its vision, its mission. Nobody's trying to change that. So I think when you hear people say "let's save the hospital, save the hospital," that's part of what they're worried about. It's not about 'saving the hospital.' It's about putting people in the hospital who can save the patients.

Davis: A year ago, federal authorities warned that because of substandard care, King risked losing Medicaid dollars. County health officials and hospital administrators scrambled to make improvements. But then came the death of Edith Rodriguez, in May, on the floor of the ER waiting room.

911 Caller: My wife is dying, and the nurses don't want to help her out.
911 Operator: What do you mean she's dying?

Davis: Rodriguez's relatives called 911 and pleaded with an operator to send an ambulance and save her life by taking her out of King-Harbor Hospital.

911 Caller: She's vomiting blood.
911 Operator: Ok, why aren't they helping her?
911 Caller: They are watching and they are not doing anything, they are just watching her.

Professor Ralph Sonenshein: I think that the recent death was really the last straw.

Davis: Cal State Fullerton Professor Ralph Sonenshein says the Rodriguez death silenced many leaders who had long come to the hospital's defense.

Sonenshein: There had been a sense that a lot of the problems were behind it. But then when it happened again, it got harder and harder to make the case.

Davis: And now, South Los Angeles is back where it was 35 years ago ... without a public hospital to serve the poorest in the city.