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First, the news…
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Underfunding is a myth, but the squandering is real
For a public hospital, King/Drew is flush. But it spends millions on employees’ odd injury claims, lavish doctor pay and workers who don’t show up.
By Charles Ornstein, Tracy Weber and Steve Hymon, Times Staff Writers
For years it has been a heartfelt cry: “This hospital desperately needs more money!”
Whenever Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center is criticized, as it often is, the response from supporters is the same. They say Los Angeles County leaders never wanted King/Drew built in the first place  and have been trying to starve it ever since.
“You know damn well the county knows what we need,” said “Sweet Alice” Harris, long revered for her charitable efforts in South Los Angeles’ black and Latino neighborhoods. “My problem is: Why is it that they don’t love the poor people and want to help them? We’re the first to be cut and the last to be rewarded.”
Amen to that, said Dr. Xylina Bean, who started at King/Drew in 1973, the year after it opened, and is now director of neonatology.
“We have a saying here which we all understand, ‘The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away,’ and usually King hospital has always been on the taketh away list, OK?”
Spend any time at the county-run hospital near Watts and it’s easy to reach the same conclusion: Patients linger unattended, walls are gouged with holes, mattresses are worn and stained, even ink cartridges are in short supply.
The numbers, however, tell a different story. Though widely believed, the notion that King/Drew is being shortchanged is false.
The medical center spent more per patient than 75% of the public and teaching hospitals in California, according to a 2002 state audit that looked at fiscal year 2000.
The difference is stark when King/Drew is measured against the three other general hospitals run by Los Angeles County.
It spent $492 more per patient daily than Olive View-UCLA Medical Center, $685 more than County-USC and $815 more than Harbor-UCLA in 2002-03, county figures show.
The hospital with the most comparable budget is Harbor-UCLA, a much bigger facility 10 miles away. Last year, Harbor-UCLA had nearly $372 million to work with, not much more than King/Drew’s $342 million.
Harbor-UCLA, however, did far more with its money.
It treated 61% more people in its emergency room and admitted 91% more patients. And it performed certain complex procedures, such as open heart surgery and kidney transplants, that King/Drew did not  drawing in patients who were sicker and more expensive to care for.
King/Drew’s problem is not the amount of money it gets but the way the money is squandered, according to audits, financial records, legal filings and dozens of interviews. (more—may need to register)
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For those that are not familiar with the Los Angeles area, the Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center has been one of those sad stories that just will not go away. Everyday, either by radio or television, it is common to hear yet another aspect regarding the poor mismanagement of this hospital.
The reason why I am highlighting this story is because the same story is being played out in similar hospitals and schools throughout the United States that serve in mostly low income minority communities.
If you look deeper into many of the claims of those that suggest that public facilities that serve this demographic tend to be underfunded, you will find that financial squandering is the main culprit in many cases (this is something that I highlight weekly in the Education Report). If you live in or near a major city, I am sure it will not take you long to find this same trend in some form or fashion.
To me, this article serves as yet another warning sign that unless there is a movement in low income communities (I would even stretch that to minority communities in general) to inquire about HOW tax dollars are being spent, we will continue to link the lack in our communities soley on underfunding caused by racism.
This is a two-way street. On one hand, public officials in low income areas must be fiscally accountable to their constituents. On the other hand the constituents must WANT to know the detailed budget information of their districts. Given the fact that so-called predatory lending is prevalent in these types of communities (I say “so-called” because much of it can be solved by people taking the time and show some initiative to understand the process BEFORE signing on the dotted line), the chances of any type of city budget watchdog initiative emerging from these types of communities are very slim.
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