L.A. County health services director quits

Los Angeles County's profoundly troubled public healthcare system fell into further crisis Thursday when its embattled director abruptly quit, and negotiations with a private entity to reopen King-Harbor hospital fell apart.

Dr. Bruce A. Chernof, whose relationship with the Board of Supervisors had grown acrimonious, told officials his exit was unrelated to the failed negotiations over Martin Luther King Jr.-Harbor Hospital.

He leaves as the county Department of Health Services faces a projected budget shortfall of $750 million over the next two years and undertakes the knotty task of moving County-USC Medical Center from its Depression-era facility to a new, smaller complex.

"Look, there is never a good time to lose a health director," said Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, "and this is as bad as any. I think it's the toughest job in the county without a doubt -- perhaps the most difficult job in public service in California -- because he is asked to run a department that is constantly in the red. It has a lot of problems."

The county operates the second-largest publicly funded healthcare system in the nation, with an annual budget exceeding $3.3 billion, three general hospitals and a network of clinics that together treat about 700,000 patients a year, most of them uninsured.

County officials have been under increasing pressure since the August 2007 closing of King-Harbor (previously known as King/Drew) in Willowbrook left neighboring communities without a public hospital.

Chernof had been promoted to the top department job in 2006 after a series of directors left with short tenures. He had a mandate to save the hospital, which had been plagued for years by serious problems, including mistakes that led to patients' deaths.

When the hospital closed after failing a federal inspection that would have cost it much of its funding, county officials said they would seek a private operator to reopen it within 12 to 18 months. If that did not happen, Chernof said then, the county might attempt to reopen the hospital itself.

Officials and community activists were heartened by recent news that a small for-profit hospital in Long Beach was in negotiations to reopen King-Harbor. But some healthcare experts expressed skepticism that the 184-bed Pacific Hospital of Long Beach was too small and inexperienced to run such a complicated and financially pressured large public hospital.