Los Angeles Times

Patients needing routine care pack emergency department at LA community hospital

LOS ANGELES — In the emergency department at MLK Community Hospital, masked patients lay in wheeled stretchers lining the hallways. Others slumped in chairs where nurses attended to them. Amid the crush of people on a recent day in December, only the sickest or most severely injured got one of the 29 rooms. The rise of flu, RSV, COVID-19 and other winter viruses has exacerbated overcrowding ...
A Los Angeles County Sheriff's Deputy accompanied a patient to the emergency department at MLK Community Hospital on Saturday, Dec. 10, 2022, in Los Angeles.

LOS ANGELES — In the emergency department at MLK Community Hospital, masked patients lay in wheeled stretchers lining the hallways.

Others slumped in chairs where nurses attended to them. Amid the crush of people on a recent day in December, only the sickest or most severely injured got one of the 29 rooms.

The rise of flu, RSV, COVID-19 and other winter viruses has exacerbated overcrowding that existed even before the pandemic, hospital officials said — the result of stark shortages in medical care in a low-income South Los Angeles neighborhood where most residents are Black or Latino.

Patients come to MLK's emergency department with minor ailments they haven't been able to get treated elsewhere, or more serious conditions that have become dire in

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