To the editor: A photograph of MLK Neighborhood Hospital was used along with your editorial “ER patients are still being hurt by racial and gender biases,” implying that our sufferers face lengthy wait occasions and racial and gender bias.
The alternative is true. MLK Neighborhood Hospital has a few of the shortest wait occasions in L.A. County regardless of having a really excessive quantity of sufferers. Our affected person care employees — greater than 90% individuals of colour — do a powerful job serving our numerous neighborhood, as our “Grade A” ranking for affected person security exhibits.
The editorial additionally missed a bigger level: Deprived individuals expertise longer wait occasions in emergency departments as a result of hospitals that serve a excessive share of Medicaid sufferers (authorities insurance coverage that covers low-income people) are sometimes overcrowded. Medicaid underpays suppliers, contributing to physician shortages that power residents of low-income communities to make use of emergency departments for wants so simple as drugs refills and take care of the flu.
Lack of entry to care, not private bias, is a significant purpose EDs are crowded and wait occasions are lengthy. Till our separate and unequal healthcare system pays suppliers adequately to deal with all Individuals, the largest impediment to fairness would be the system itself.
Elaine Batchlor, M.D., Los Angeles
The author is chief government of MLK Neighborhood Healthcare.
