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Sun Aug 12 04:33:02 BST 2007

Political ?

Political ?

You are far too sophisticated

Economics !

Economics ! ! !

Is what killed "Killer King"

It's like putting a Snow making factory at the north pole
No economic sense

The hospital industry
And it is an industry

Lives and dies by their patients wallet
Not by their patients life, death & health

The political only comes in 
When humane intervention
And a bad/better heart
Needs to correct these prized and sacred economic forces

When this human intervention is suddenly required to tip this paradigm
In a area of no ecomimic cents
And where tenuous & fluctuating Moral, Ethical, Social, Historic grounds

That could very well sustain itself through a general human spirit
For it not that...

These fine and fair emotions have to be strained through the tickness ot the BIG state and federal wallets
Trumping all good emotions

And allowing all sorts of HUMAN emotion, attitudes, demands, principled principles
To be exorcised

The devil of all these details
The BAD hospitals
Die and live of a thousand of pay per cuts

America
Has the best health care and incomes in the world
Considering it's resources

America
Has the worst health care and outcomes in the world
Considering it's resources

Eeuuuuhhhhh ! ! !
It's just an opinion
Of course

Charles

----- Original Message ----
From: "KMATTOX at aol.com" <KMATTOX at aol.com>
To: measl at mfn.org; med-events at ccm-l.org
Cc: trauma-list at trauma.org
Sent: Sunday, August 12, 2007 8:08:31 AM
Subject: Drew MLK Hospital

It is a sad editorial that this county hospital, strategically located in a  
needed area of Los Angeles is closing.   It was a designated Level I  trauma 
center, so designated by the LA Health  Department.     Drew MLK Hospital joins 
other county  hospitals in the United States that have closed due to 
political, not economic  or medical school commitments.    The list is  impressive:   

Philadelphia General Hospital
Charity Hospital of Louisiana in New Orleans
University Hospital in New Orleans
Drew MLK in Los Angeles

Others have been rumored to have been in political or economic trouble from  
time to time

LA County
Lincoln Hospital
Cook County in Chicago

A number of others have changed drastically after they have been  politicized 
and with distancing between the long standing medical school  linkages.   
Many of the political leaders of these traditional  "teaching" hospitals want the 
doctors to be employees of the hospital and to  remove linkages to the 
medical schools.    MISTAKE

So many of the advances in health care, surgery, critical care, and nursing  
have occurred in these city, county, and teaching hospitals.     So many of 
these hospitals have served as economic and quality models of low  cost/high 
quality and outside the political HMO, managed care, and federalized  examples 
that many politicians want to create.   

The struggles of Drew MLK Hospital provide many lessons as to what NOT to  
do.    The demise of this hospital began the day of its  conception as an idea, 
as it was marginalized and politicized from the moment of  inception.     It 
hardly had a chance of  success.   Some very very wonderful and capable persons 
gave of their  lives to try to breathe the breath of quality and detail into 
this place, but  were hampered at every tern.    Dr. Art Fleming dedicated 
much of  the best years of his life to trying to make this an academic center of  
excellence.     He met stone wall after stone political  wall.     Even after 
the hospital was in trouble, several  prominent physicians from across the 
country were open and behind the scenes  consultants to this hospital, its 
system, its board, and the commissioners of LA  County.    NO ONE, NO ONE at any 
time was given the authority to  make it work.    I am now reading of pointed 
fingers at the  persons at the operational level who contributed to the closure 
of this  hospital.    The fault and the blame must be placed at the  highest 
level of the Los Angeles Political Machinery and with the Board of this  
hospital system.     

Now to this list server and the many things we talk about  politically.    
Any political/social/strategic planner/medical  futurist who would advise the 
future health care delivery direction for the  United States would be well 
served to study the conception, development, birth,  growth, injuries, illnesses, 
critical care, hospice, and demise of this  magnificiently conceived hospital 
and medical school.    

This closure is a sad day in the history of county hospitals in the United  
States.   However, this hospital was star crossed and doomed from the  
beginning.    

Kenneth L. Mattox, MD

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