King/Drew Hits Hard at Problem Personnel
More than a fifth of the staff at Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center has been fired or disciplined since January 2004 in an extraordinary crackdown prompted by revelations of widespread misconduct at the troubled public hospital.
But weeding out misbehavior hasn't been easy. Indeed, some of the serious lapses in employee performance and judgment identified in recent months are markedly similar to what brought heightened scrutiny to King/Drew in the first place, a Times review of Los Angeles County Civil Service Commission records found.
Under the gaze of regulators, auditors, consultants, county supervisors and the media, King/Drew employees have continued to skip work or doze on the job, neglect patients and engage in heated and sometimes violent altercations, the records show.
Among the allegations by the hospital against employees last year:
* Critical-care nurse Arceli Andrade nodded off at a table in the break room while she was supposed to be on duty. One of her patients faded and eventually died. She was fired, as was her boss, Felix Brown, who had "frequently witnessed" her sleeping on other occasions and had to "shake her to wake her," according to his discharge letter.
* Nursing attendant Martha Cortez was arrested on her lunch break on suspicion of battery, then had a family member call the hospital to say an "unexpected emergency" would keep her from her shift. She was in jail.
* Several custodians goaded a belligerent patient struggling with a police officer, urging him to "Kick the police's ass." Janitor Gregory G. Williams, who had a decade-long history of discipline problems, challenged the officer to "take off your badge and take off your gun and meet me at 120th" Street, his discharge letter said.
Details of these cases and dozens of others emerged from the files of the Civil Service Commission, which handles disciplinary appeals by county employees. Nearly all the King/Drew appeals are pending.
The Times sought to reach the employees named in this story both directly and with the assistance of labor union representatives. However, with one exception, the workers could not be reached. Unless otherwise noted, all of the employees denied the allegations against them in letters to the commission from the union.
In the above cases, Cortez withdrew an appeal of her suspension but still works at King/Drew. The allegations against Andrade were included in her boss' disciplinary record. The Times could find no record that she appealed her discharge.
