Overcrowding in the emergency room at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center is placing patients in immediate jeopardy, according to state inspectors working on behalf of the federal government.
The Los Angeles County Department of Health Services expects to receive a formal citation based on last week's inspection, another blow to the county's fragile emergency room system.
In August, the county was forced to close most of Martin Luther King Jr.-Harbor Hospital in South Los Angeles after its federal funding was revoked because of lapses in care.
The federal government has also threatened to pull funding from another hospital in the county system, Olive View-UCLA Medical Center in Sylmar, because of deficiencies in care.
The expected citation for Harbor-UCLA, located in an unincorporated part of the county near Torrance, will require the county to establish a plan of correction or risk losing its federal funding.
The investigation was prompted by the Dec. 22 death of William Harold Jones Jr., an emergency room patient who left the hospital before treatment was finished and was found dead in a parking lot across the street.
Jones, 56, was admitted to the emergency room about 1 a.m. complaining of generalized body pain, according to the Los Angeles County coroner's office.
At 6:20 a.m., he told the staff he was going to use the restroom, but he never returned, the coroner's office said. The hospital realized a little after 9 a.m. that he had not returned.
Shortly after noon, a passerby found Jones dead on the sidewalk across the street from the hospital.
The coroner listed Jones' death as accidental and found that he was suffering from diabetes and end-stage renal disease. He also had cocaine in his system.
State officials launched the inspection of Harbor-UCLA last week on behalf of the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
Los Angeles County health services Director Dr. Bruce Chernof said in a statement Tuesday that inspectors told the county to expect a citation that would say Harbor-UCLA placed patients in "immediate jeopardy."
Chernof said in the statement that the county is already working on submitting a plan of correction to the inspectors.
Overcrowding in Harbor-UCLA's emergency room and delays in patient treatment were expected to be highlighted in the citation, according to Chernof's statement.
Chernof was not available for further comment.
