South L.A. Hospital Is Losing U.S. Funds

LOS ANGELES, Aug. 10 -- An iconic local hospital built after the 1965 Watts riots to serve an area made up mostly of African Americans will lose its federal funding next week, officials announced Friday, pushing Martin Luther King Jr.-Harbor Hospital one step closer to closing for good.

The hospital will lose $200 million in federal funds, the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services announced, saying that conditions there "placed the health and safety of patients at great risk." The move was widely expected since King-Harbor failed its last federal inspection.

Nevertheless, the news came as a blow to activists who have fought for years to keep the hospital open.

The loss of King-Harbor would leave many low-income neighborhoods in South Los Angeles without any nearby hospital -- just as it was before the hospital opened in 1972. That will mean longer trips by ambulance for the tens of thousands of people treated in emergency rooms.

Outpatient clinics and an urgent-care center will remain open, county officials have said.

The medical care provided by King-Harbor has been repeatedly called into question. In a widely reported instance this year, a woman died after falling to the emergency room floor while awaiting treatment. She was ignored by hospital personnel who walked around her and a janitor who mopped the floor next to where she lay.

The hospital has been out of compliance with federal standards since January 2004 and lost its accreditation in 2005, but has remained open while political leaders tried to turn the institution around.

County leaders will try to find a private operator to take over so the hospital can reopen within a year, the Los Angeles Times reported.