Regents’ landmark MLK hospital vote expected Thursday

After months of negotiations, the plan to create a thoroughly transformed hospital on the site of the former Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center comes down to nine people: the members of the University of California Board of Regents’ committee on health services.

The deal that UC Senior Vice President John Stobo will present to the committee Thursday morning at UCLA’s Covel Commons calls for the creation of a new community hospital—staffed by UC doctors, funded by L.A. County and governed by a newly-formed private nonprofit corporation.

Hundreds are expected to attend the meeting, a milestone in the difficult journey to chart a new course for MLK, which closed as an inpatient facility in 2007, following years of mismanagement, neglect and poor patient care.

The UC partnership idea was first put forward by Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky last year in an L.A. Times Op-Ed piece and has gathered momentum ever since. The regents’ vote would be the first to formally link the county and the UC on this project.

UC President Mark G. Yudof supports the proposed deal and is urging the health services committee to recommend its passage to the full board. If approved by the committee—which is headed by Sherry Lansing, the Regents’ vice-chair—the proposed agreement would move quickly to the full Board of Regents, which could take action immediately. The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors also would need to approve it.

“For myself, I can say that I am very, very supportive of it,” Lansing said Wednesday. She said that she had not discussed it with other regents but she believes that they, too, are committed, in general, to a mission of providing healthcare in under-served communities.
“I myself feel it’s a moral imperative,” Lansing said. “The holdback is that we’ve had these enormous cuts in the legislature…We needed to be assured from a financial standpoint.” She applauded the work of the county and of Stobo and said that she believes those assurances are now in place.

Under the agreement, the county would create a $50 million start-up fund for the hospital and pay $50 million a year to run it, with an additional $13.3 million in county funds going to support indigent care services at the facility each year. It also would provide a $20 million revolving line of credit. In addition, the county is spending $208.5 million to rebuild the hospital facility and bring it up to seismic safety standards, and $145.3 million to build a new multi-service ambulatory care center (MACC) nearby.

For its part, the UC would provide the “broad spectrum of physician services necessary to operate the hospital” and would direct any teaching activities at the site.

The nonprofit corporation in charge of the new 120-bed hospital—which could open as early as late 2012—would be overseen by a seven-member board of directors appointed by the UC President and Los Angeles County.

Although the UC’s analysis shows the new hospital would be expected to have a positive cash flow, the university system asked for and received a commitment from L.A. County to secure a $100 million letter of credit to “backstop” its commitment to funding the new institution over the first six years.