Opinion: Consequences of King-Harbor Closure Debated

Two recent Los Angeles Times opinion pieces offer opposing views on how the potential closure of Martin Luther King Jr.-Harbor Hospital will affect the community. The hospital in August faces a federal inspection to determine whether it will retain its state license and federal funding.

Earl Hutchinson, author and political analyst, writes that the "great myth is that King-Harbor is an inherently lousy hospital filled with incompetent, neglectful and malicious doctors and nurses who routinely kill patients." Hutchinson cites the fact that King-Harbor has "one of the highest emergency patient loads of any urban hospital," with more than 40,000 patients annually, most of whom are low-income blacks and Latinos. He concludes, "If King closes, where are the poor to go? The question still hangs unanswered."
However, Joe Hicks -- vice president of Community Advocates, a Los Angeles-based human relations organization -- writes, "The question isn't, 'Where do the poor go if King-Harbor closes?' but the larger and more pressing question, 'Why aren't civil-rights activists demanding first-class hospital services for this hard-pressed constituency?'" Hicks writes that the King-Harbor staff's "incompetence has often been in deadly combination with a culture of corruption and a system of racial patronage that has made this major-city hospital function more like that of a hospital located in some backwater third-world nation." He concludes that if closing King-Harbor is the only way to find "something better," then "that would serve the purposes of the Watts-Willowbrook community far better than 'Killer King'" (Hutchinson/Hicks, Los Angeles Times, 6/27).

Broadcast Coverage

KPCC's "Air Talk" on Wednesday included a discussion about the hospital with Los Angeles County Supervisors Zev Yaroslavsky and Yvonne Burke (Mantle, "Air Talk," KPCC, 6/28).

Audio of the segment is available online.

Also on the subject of King-Harbor, KQED's "The California Report" on Wednesday included a discussion with reporter Charles Ornstein, who has been covering the story for the Los Angeles Times ("The California Report," KQED, 6/27).

Audio of the segment is available online.

This is part of the California Healthline Daily Edition, a summary of health policy coverage from major news organizations. Sign up for an email subscription.