Struggling to survive, South L.A.'s MLK hospital seeks greater share of county funds

Martin Luther King Jr. Community Hospital successful Willowbrook is the main exigency aesculapian attraction enactment for hundreds of thousands of South Los Angeles residents, but abstraction is truthful choky that galore patients are treated successful ample metal-frame tents connected the pavement outside.

On a caller summertime day, large aerial conditioners blew chill aerial arsenic nurses drew humor and tended wounds, calling to caput the makeshift spaces utilized during the aboriginal days of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The tents are a stark denotation of the dire fiscal authorities of the hospital, whose leaders accidental it could beryllium forced to adjacent if it doesn’t find a mode to consistently bring successful much money. The infirmary precocious reported $14 cardinal successful nett income for its astir caller fiscal year, but operated successful the reddish each of 3 anterior years.

Next year, it anticipates losing $80 cardinal to $100 cardinal successful yearly backing arsenic a effect of 2025’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, oregon HR1, which mandated changes to Medicaid eligibility and financing.

“One of the wealthiest cities successful 1 of the wealthiest states successful the country, successful the wealthiest state successful the world, successful modern-day America, and we’re caring for patients successful 4 achromatic tents connected achromatic concrete,” Tony Weiss, MLK Community Healthcare’s manager of media relations, said during a circuit of the hectic exigency department. “That’s crazy.”

Martin Luther King Jr. Community Hospital CEO Dr. Elaine Batchlor adjacent a structure utilized for exigency country intake.

(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

As MLK infirmary struggles against terrible fiscal headwinds, its leaders are calling connected the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors to reevaluate however it awards the funds the region collects via Measure B, which levies a signifier of spot tax. In fiscal twelvemonth 2025, funds brought successful via the measurement totaled astir $427 million, according to the county.

The ballot initiative, which was approved by region voters successful 2002, described “an yearly peculiar taxation to rise gross to enactment the Countywide System of Trauma Centers, Emergency Medical Services, and Bioterrorism Response.”

Despite that, “ongoing” oregon recurring funds collected via the measurement are allocated to region hospitals and backstage hospitals with trauma centers. Private hospitals without trauma centers, specified arsenic MLK hospital, are near to vie for a chopped of a excavation of immoderate “leftover” funds that transcend the magnitude the region projected raising via the measure.

Between 2023 and 2025, MLK infirmary had to beryllium bailed retired by the authorities and region 4 times for a full of $68 million, $29 cardinal of which was provided via two, one-time disbursements of “leftover” Measure B funds.

The infirmary — which opened arsenic a backstage nonprofit successful 2015 aft county-operated Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center closed successful 2007 amid a situation implicit substandard aesculapian attraction — has ne'er received immoderate “ongoing” Measure B funds.

All told, $126 cardinal of Measure B funds were awarded to 13 backstage hospitals with trauma centers successful L.A. County past fiscal year, including Cedars-Sinai Medical Center successful Beverly Grove. With astir 900 beds and 2,100 doctors, Cedars-Sinai is 1 of the biggest and astir susceptible hospitals successful the U.S.

Cedars-Sinai reported nett income of astir $1.1 cardinal connected much than $5.8 cardinal successful gross past fiscal twelvemonth connected its national 990 taxation signifier successful May. It reported nett assets of $9.9 billion, an summation of $1 cardinal implicit the erstwhile fiscal year.

Cedars-Sinai, which received astir $9.4 cardinal successful Measure B funds past year, has opposed important changes successful however the wealth is awarded.

Hallways are utilized arsenic attraction abstraction arsenic the exigency section operates beyond capableness astatine Martin Luther King Jr. Community Hospital successful Willowbrook.

(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

Changes to however the funds are allocated “could displacement Measure B distant from its intended purpose,” Stephanie Cohen, Cedars-Sinai’s vice president of authorities and manufacture relations, said successful a July 8 missive to L.A. County officials. “Existing backing is already insufficient to prolong these services.”

Cedars-Sinai spokeswoman Sally Stewart added successful an emailed connection that “changing the allocation look risks undermining the strategy that Measure B was designed to support and sustain.”

Weiss of MLK infirmary described the stark spread successful the 2 aesculapian providers’ fiscal pictures arsenic “a communicative of 2 hospitals.”

On a caller weekday, dozens of exigency section patients were lying connected gurneys adjacent to a nursing station, waiting connected hard integrative chairs lined up successful hallways, and undergoing attraction successful rows of tiny spaces separated lone by low, cubicle-style walls. The infirmary has besides doubled up galore of its single-occupancy infirmary rooms, converted its acquisition store to a process country and resorted to treating patients successful what were erstwhile meditation and waiting rooms.

For years, MLK hospital’s leaders person wanted to renovate under-utilized interior spaces astatine its Willowbrook field to grow the exigency department. But it hasn’t been capable to spend to bash so, truthful it has relied connected the tents successful caller years to assistance negociate the terrible overcrowding successful its exigency department, which has 29 beds and was built for 25,000 diligent visits a year, but present sees much than 120,000 diligent visits annually.

The infirmary has already taken a bid of large steps to marque ends meet, according to Dr. Elaine Batchlor, its main executive.

The disparity successful “ongoing” Measure B funds awarded is adjacent much concerning, she said during an interrogation successful her bureau astatine MLK hospital, due to the fact that of the antithetic populations served by the installation arsenic opposed to different facilities that person millions of specified dollars each year.

Rethinking however Measure B funds are allocated, Batchlor said, is simply a mode of helping to guarantee that hospitals that service communities with the astir fiscal needs and fewest healthcare options person much fiscal assistance. Like galore of the patients it serves, MLK hospital’s precise endurance is connected the line.

Hospital beds beryllium extracurricular a structure utilized for exigency section intake astatine Martin Luther King Jr. Community Hospital successful Willowbrook connected July 16.

(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

“Why is it considered due to lone springiness this wealth to these 13 trauma centers erstwhile immoderate of them intelligibly are doing good financially?” she added. “There are communities that are overmuch much successful request and under-served than Beverly Hills and West L.A.”

Dr. Naman Shah, manager of the L.A. County Department of Public Health’s Division of Medical and Dental Affairs, said that the mode Measure B funds person been doled retired successful the past “didn’t truly bespeak the economics of healthcare successful the region successful presumption of which hospitals needed much support.”

If MLK infirmary closed, helium said, “it would beryllium devastating, and we would person untold misery from deficiency of entree to care.”

The colonisation MLK infirmary serves successful South Los Angeles is among the slightest financially unafraid successful the region. In 2023, MLK infirmary had astir 85,000 Medicaid/Medi-Cal diligent visits to its exigency department, the astir successful the state, portion Cedars-Sinai had astir 17,000, according to the California Department of Health Care Access and Information.

In 95% of the visits to MLK hospital’s exigency section successful fiscal twelvemonth 2025, the patients were either connected Medicaid/Medi-Cal oregon Medicare, oregon uninsured. Because of that, billed diligent gross makes up conscionable 44% of the hospital’s fiscal-year 2026 budget; the remainder comes from authorities and region funding.

Pastor Robert Taylor of Beulah Baptist Church successful Watts has advocated for greater resources for MLK infirmary successful his relation arsenic president of Watts Area Ministers. Measure B funds, helium said, should beryllium “distributed successful a mode that champion meets the needs of the community” alternatively of going to “hospitals who don’t truly request it.”

“If that infirmary shuts down successful our community, it’s going to beryllium devastating,” helium said, noting that the adjacent closest exigency section is St. Francis Medical Center, respective miles distant successful Lynwood. “It could beryllium deadly to person to question that acold to get to an exigency department.”

Los Angeles County Supervisor Holly Mitchell, whose territory includes Willowbrook, wants the Board of Supervisors to instrumentality steps to reconsider however Measure B funds are allocated. She plans to present a measurement astatine Tuesday’s committee gathering to prosecute a advisor to analyse the contented and marque recommendations for the champion usage of the money.

“Hospitals similar Martin Luther King Jr. Community Hospital, which serves immoderate of the highest volumes of exigency country patients contempt having little fiscal stability, underscore the world that not each hospitals look the aforesaid challenges successful keeping their doors open,” Mitchell said successful an emailed statement.

“Yet each infirmary plays a captious relation successful our exigency attraction system,” she said. “We beryllium it to the nationalist to guarantee — done an autarkic reappraisal — that Measure B funds proceed to fulfill its intended intent of supporting and stabilizing a strong, countywide trauma and exigency attraction system.”