Jim Lott

Several city officials introduced a proposed ordinance Wednesday that would make it illegal for hospitals to discharge patients in downtown skid row without the patients' consent. A similar bill was vetoed in mid-October by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who said existing law was adequate to stop the problem. But Los Angeles City Atty. Rocky Delgadillo and downtown Councilwoman Jan Perry say a new law is necessary because the city's only current remedy is to file civil suits against hospitals.

Kaiser Permanente began construction Friday on a new hospital in Panorama City designed to meet new seismic standards, officials said. The new building, one of 11 Kaiser Permanente hospitals currently being planned or built in Southern California, would replace an existing 41-year-old facility on Cantara Street at Woodman Avenue. It is slated for completion in 2007.

An organization representing the county's seven private hospitals said Friday that it will give the county one month to come up with a plan to share its $260-million tobacco settlement--or it will throw its money and support behind a plan that divert the money to private hands. "If we don't get significant movement in 30 days, we'll just stop wasting the county's time," said Jim Lott of the Healthcare Assn.

Hospitals straining under an extreme shortage of nurses now face another blow: USC is considering eliminating its undergraduate nursing program. Administrators of hospitals throughout the region have responded with anger and disbelief that USC might drop undergraduate nurses' training. "We felt this was the wrong time to think about that," said Jim Lott, executive vice president of the Health Care Assn. of Southern California. "We need more nursing slots and more nursing programs, not fewer."

It was the wires dangling from a wall clock that first caught the eye of the nurse, who was taking a breather after a stint in the labor and delivery unit of Good Samaritan Hospital. A closer inspection revealed a tiny, pea-sized camera lens above the numeral "9." Within minutes, nurses at the hospital just west of downtown Los Angeles hit the phones, alerting colleagues about the device in the break room and asking them to check other clocks for hidden cameras.

Just before 10:45 a.m., Keith Marks called 911 and the Los Angeles County emergency response system sprang into action. A fire engine, a paramedic squad and a private ambulance - eight men in total - rushed to the Martin Luther King Jr. urgent-care center in Willowbrook. When they arrived, Marks, 56, was sitting calmly in a wheelchair just outside the entrance. His complaint: he was having joint pain from gout and wanted his medication refilled. "I can't walk," he said.

To keep 10 private hospitals from making good on a threat to close their trauma centers, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors has agreed to a month-to-month contract extension for the next six months, officials said Monday.

Re your Oct. 7 article on Props. 214 and 216: If Prop. 216 and Prop. 214 on HMO reform are twins, as the HMO industry contends, then Prop. 216--backed by California's nurses, Ralph Nader and Prop. 103's Harvey Rosenfield--is Abel. Able to end HMO abuses, such as the bonuses awarded to doctors for withholding treatment and the unreasonable denial of access to specialists' care, with new patient safeguards. Prop. 216 can only be amended by two-thirds vote of the Legislature. Prop.

Hospitals in Los Angeles County could absorb patients from Martin Luther King Jr.-Harbor Hospital if the facility closed, but only if more emergency room and critical care beds were added nearby, according to a report released Monday. The Hospital Assn.

Hundreds of people suffering from flu-like symptoms, bronchitis or pneumonia swamped hospitals Friday in Orange County, prompting seven medical centers to close their overcrowded emergency rooms temporarily, county health officials said. Though the situation here is not as dire as in Los Angeles, health care officials asked that only people with serious illnesses seek care from hospital emergency rooms. "We're seeing mostly pneumonia and bronchitis.