LA County May Hand Control of King/Drew Hospital to Private Firm

A consultant group would run the hospital for at least a year and review each department. In response to a series of medical lapses and patient deaths, Los Angeles County officials put forth a plan Wednesday to hand over day-to-day management of Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center to a private consulting firm.  The move would mark the first time the county had ceded operations at one of its hospitals to outside managers, and it underscored the county's struggles to fix years of problems at the Willowbrook medical center, near Watts. Under the plan, which the Board of Supervisors is expected to approve Tuesday, the county would pay Navigant Consulting up to $13.25 million to take over from current county managers for at least a year and complete a top-to-bottom review of how the facility operates. The firm could begin work as early as Nov. 1. County officials said the shift would provide much more oversight of the hospital, with 23 consultants from Navigant doing the jobs that five county managers now perform. [more ]

• Pictured above: Assemblyman Mervyn Dymally (D-Compton), center, and U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles) and residents gather outside Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center in Willowbrook, south of Watts, calling for the resignation of Dr. Thomas Garthwaite, director of the county health department.