Sick patients, some of them naked and in restraints, were left on gurneys in public corridors at Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center on Monday in what some physicians called a shocking new example of the hospital's acute overcrowding.

One young patient was reduced to slurping food from a tray in his lap because his hands were tied with thick leather restraints. As a reporter watched, another patient was spoon-fed by two people who appeared to be family members.

"I was shocked when I saw this," said a senior County-USC physician who requested anonymity. Another physician described the scene as "disgusting" and "degrading" to the patients and demoralizing to the medical staff.

All of the patients, who were in the main public route into the emergency room, were sick enough to have been admitted as inpatients at the medical center's General Hospital and were awaiting beds in internal medicine units. The overflow into the corridor had been under way for at least six hours, but it was unknown how long any individual had been left in the public area.

A hospital spokesman, Harvey Kern, said Monday the situation, "should not have occurred," and was corrected as soon as top administrators learned of it. Doctors said the patients were moved into a private, unused room off the main emergency room at about 2 p.m. Monday.

"It was an inappropriate situation, handled by individuals who were not aware of hospital policy," said Kern.

Most administrators and medical department chiefs were off Monday for the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, Kern said. He added that Edward Martinez, General Hospital's chief administrator, came in from home after noon to deal with the situation.

A week ago, County-USC administrators assured state inspectors that staffing deficiencies blamed for overcrowding and deficient patient care were being corrected. Two inspectors for the state Department of Health Services toured the emergency department Dec. 23, citing the facility for several lapses in procedure and quality of care.

The inspectors' report, obtained by The Times Monday, documented the case of an 82-year-old man with an irregular heartbeat whose vital signs were insufficiently monitored. The report also cited cases where a psychiatric patient in restraints was improperly left unattended and patients waited up to 50 hours on emergency room gurneys for a bed in the critical care unit.