Swine Flu Threatens to Overrun County's Flagship Hospital
Some patients wait up to 24 hours to get a bed
Thursday, Jan 7, 2010 | Updated 2:48 PM PST
Co0unty USC Medical Center
Los Angeles County+USC Medical Center
County-USC Medical Center often has as many as 100 patients in its emergency room waiting for a bed, and some of them wait longer than 24 hours, a county supervisor said Tuesday.
``L.A. County-USC is severely or dangerously overcrowded over 25 to 50 percent of the time,'' said Supervisor Gloria Molina.
Molina proposed directing hospital personnel to transfer patients to other medical facilities whenever more than 13 patients are waiting for a room, or the wait for a bed is more than 11 hours.
The volume of patients at the county's flagship hospital has increased dramatically over the last two years, due in part to the economic downturn, said Carol Meyer of the Department of Health Services.
The economy ``is driving our hospital room to be extremely busy,'' Meyer said, saying patient volume was up more than 25 percent from 2006-07 levels.
County-USC's new hospital building opened in November 2008 in Boyle Heights, replacing the old structure, which was damaged by the 1994 Northridge earthquake.
Meyer reports to the board at least bimonthly on hospital operations.
Less acute patients are transferred to Rancho Los Amigos National Rehabilitation Center or two private hospitals when crowding is excessive.
In August, Molina raised issues about the speed and aggressiveness of transfers, and Meyer noted that patients sometimes decline to be sent to another facility.
But Molina remained unsatisfied today and sought to dictate more specific guidelines. She expressed continuing concern that the hospital might be unable to cope in the event of a major emergency or countywide disaster, such as an earthquake.
``When the real surge comes -- and it may be with the H1N1 (swine flu) -- then you can get into ... `severely overcrowded','' Molina said, referencing a metric used by hospital staff to assess the number of patients.
Supervisor Don Knave said a recent survey showed that more than a third of patients at Rancho Los Amigos came from County-USC, noting the need for more beds countywide.
Some of the strain on the county hospital system is due to the closing of Martin Luther King Jr. Medical Center in 2007. A plan to reopen that hospital at a cost of $354 million has been approved by the board.
The board voted 5-0 in support of Molina's recommendation.
