Taking the temperature at MLK

No one will feel the impact more keenly of the deal between Los Angeles County and the University of California than the patients of Martin Luther King Jr. hospital.

Patients and family members interviewed there Thursday shared high hopes that the partnership to operate the 40-year-old hospital complex in Watts will dramatically improve and expand medical services to the South L.A. communities it was built to serve.

Most thought that UC physicians enjoyed a high reputation and expect staffing levels to improve. Patients also hope that the new operators will move quickly to reopen shuttered hospital services such as the emergency room and expand specialty medical care to cut wait times and improve service.

Today’s UC vote brought a holiday spirit to the beleaguered medical facility. Second District Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas hosted a raucous lunchtime celebration in the hospital’s auditorium with patients, community members, hospital staffers and union officials. Many were sporting stickers reading “Open a New MLK Hospital. We are ready to partner.”

Even patients who didn’t know about the new agreement were optimistic. “I think it’ll be great,” said Marco Godoy, 42, of Norwalk, visiting the Urgent Care clinic with his son Andrew, 21, who’d injured his foot. “This hospital has had a reputation for not being well run. With the leadership coming in from the UC, I think service can only go up.”

Many patients expect a more streamlined and effective administration. Timothy Bingham, 62, believes that the old regime’s major shortcoming wasn’t ineffective medical care. The real problems, he argues, were caused by administrators who “operated and manipulated” the hospital as a jobs program rather than as a health-care provider.

“This is a nice facility, and the community deserves that it be well run for everyone’s benefit,” said Bingham, a retired schoolteacher who was receiving dental care at the hospital on Thursday.

Security guard Markus Cook said he also looked forward to a new day of improved administration and medical care for Watts and all of South Los Angeles County. “I would expect the UC to do a better job running the hospital,” said Cook, who retired from the Los Angeles Housing Authority and was keeping an eye on a remote parking lot Wednesday. “They have a better reputation and they’ll want to protect it.”

Still, a few patients had reservations about the advent of the UC regime.

“I’d rather not see them come in,” complained Tony Allen, 77, who said was happy with MLK hospital services before the closure. He’s afraid UC medical personnel will be “elite…prima donnas” culturally unable to connect with the hospital’s working class patients. “They wouldn’t know how to act with the community,” said Allen, a musician who leads the Watts 103rd Street Band and sat ramrod straight as he waited to obtain heart medication. Calling his doctor “the best,” Allen said he doesn’t want to lose him in the changeover.

Despite such misgivings, hopes are high that the chaos of recent years is nearing an end. Said Jeanetta Shamburger, who was visiting the internal medicine clinic for a checkup: “I expect to see more doctors here, and I think there’ll be less pressure on them” as they strive to deliver good medicine in an area that needs and deserves it.