Residents of South Los Angeles Face Obstacles Accessing Health Care
As a number of key hospitals and medical centers in South Los Angeles have closed or reduced services over the last four years, residents are finding more problems accessing care, the Los Angeles Times reports.
Robert F. Kennedy Medical Center in Hawthorne closed in 2004, while Martin Luther King Jr.-Harbor Hospital in Watts closed last year. Brotman Medical Center in Culver City recently filed for bankruptcy protection, and officials at Downey Regional Medical Center and other area hospitals have raised questions about how much longer their facilities will remain open.
In addition, Centinela Hospital Medical Center in Inglewood has significantly cut services as it attempts to remain financially viable.
Liz Forer -- CEO of the Venice Family Clinic, which provides no-cost care to the uninsured -- said, "This is a system, and an area in particular, that can't take many more hits." Forer said her clinic had seen a 15% increase in patients from Inglewood as hospital cuts continue.
"At some point, you have to ask what is too much" for South Los Angeles to absorb, Lark Galloway-Gilliam, executive director for the health advocacy group Community Health Councils, said (Costello, Los Angeles Times, 5/29).