Controversy is brewing in Maxine Waters’ 43rd Congressional district.
If you were to ride the eastbound Metro bus 120 towards Norwalk, you would eventually pass Martin Luther King Community Hospital, and emergency room.
Typically, whether it be day or late night, there would likely be a gathering of folk sitting at the bus stops along 120th St, in front of the hospital, and typically they would wave the driver on, and continue whatever business or conversation in which they were engaged.
If you travel onward with the route of the bus, about ten minutes away, you will come across St. Francis hospital, another emergency room only 2.5 miles away from MLKCH.
To have two emergency rooms, that close together is actually quite rare. There are 325 acute care facilities in the state of California. Statistically, 58% of all Americans live less than 5 miles away from their nearest hospital, although all of those care centers may not carry the designations “trauma” or emergency room”.
Although the density of uninsured and at risk citizens suggests otherwise, the busiest hospital in Los Angeles is LA General. Bare in mind that that hospital is more likely to serve the working poor that might have health insurance. That demographic may be less likely to endure aches and pains and suffer in silence until the last minute before seeking care.
These are the facts. Never the less controversy is brewing, but Congresswomen Waters is accustomed to spotting potentially adverse outcomes, and she is nimbly astute enough to know when to quietly sound the alarm, well before it becomes necessary for the shouting to start.
We have arrived at the start of this campaign. When the California Assembly, in 2010 passed AB 2599, which blindly underfunded the MLKCH. Their projections at the time grossly underestimated the realities that are now facing MLKCH fourteen years later, Their projections anticipated that MLKCH would absorb 25,000 emergency room patients annually, but in this past year, that number exceeded 120,000.
When they passed AB 2599, it assumed that the number of ER visits would split between MLKCH and St. Francis, but as mentioned before a large contingent of potential MLKCH patients virtually live just outside of the grounds. In contrast, following the bus route between the two hospitals, it was noticeable that a many of St. Francis’ patients arrived by ambulance. I have no numbers to verify St. Francis’ workload, besides we need to focus on the wide discrepancy in the expectations of AB 2599 and the reality before our eyes. In 2022, the assembly took note of the widening chasm between the two realities and proposed AB 2426. The bill passed but was vetoed by the governor. in a statement he noted that the bill as written, essentially conflicts with federal law and overruns the state’s budget.
Considering the recently reported losses incurred, due to natural disasters, and work stoppages, that does seem to be sound reasoning, but. Congresswoman Waters has petitioned him to seek his budget cutting requirements in a manner that does not endanger the health, well being and lives of the poorest and sickest members of our society, and reconsider his veto.
Read the full text of the Congresswoman’s letter to the governor here:
https://waters.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/congresswoman-maxine-waters-fights-for-martin-luther-king-jr-community-hospital
