California Hospital Medical Center in downtown Los Angeles announced Wednesday that it would open the county's first new trauma center in more than a decade, a critical step in the effort to shut down the trauma unit at Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center.
Under an agreement worked out with Los Angeles County officials, the new trauma center would pick up two-thirds of the 1,800 most severely injured patients, such as people hurt in traffic accidents or wounded by gunshots, whom King/Drew would normally treat in a year.
California Hospital officials have been discussing opening a trauma center for several years but were worried about the expense. The high cost of running such units has led to the closure of 10 in the county in the last two decades.
To overcome those concerns, California Hospital negotiated an agreement under which it would receive about $2.9 million through June from the county to help cover the costs of treating uninsured patients, officials said. The county's agreements with all trauma centers will be renegotiated after June.
The announcement comes five days before a public hearing at which the county Board of Supervisors could vote to shut down the King/Drew trauma center. County officials say the closure would help them keep the rest of the troubled hospital open, but many South Los Angeles community groups and elected officials fear that it would reduce medical services in one of the county's poorest areas.
The deal with California Hospital still requires the Board of Supervisors' approval, which could come Tuesday.
County Department of Health Services spokesman John Wallace said he could not say whether the cost to taxpayers of caring for trauma patients at California Hospital would be greater or less than at King/Drew's unit.
King/Drew has already greatly reduced the number of patients it accepts at the trauma center by frequently closing it to ambulances in recent weeks.
Typically, officials close the King/Drew unit to ambulance calls about 4% of the time -- usually because trauma bays are full. But since Oct. 16, the unit has been closed 81% of the time, according to figures provided by Carol Meyer, director of the county's Emergency Medical Services Agency. From Oct. 24 to Oct. 28, the trauma center accepted patients brought by ambulances for only five hours total.
By contrast, the county's two other trauma centers -- at County-USC and Harbor-UCLA medical centers -- generally divert ambulance calls 1% or less of the time, Meyer said.
