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The troubled county hospital in Willowbrook will become part of Harbor-UCLA medical center and get a new name: Harbor-Martin Luther King Jr. Community Hospital. Under the plan approved by the Board of Supervisors:
- Harbor-MLK would retain an emergency room.
- General medicine services, gynecology and routine surgeries would continue.
- Hospital beds would be reduced to 42 by March 1, rising to 114 by November 2007.
- No King/Drew staff member would be fired or laid off.
- High-risk obstetrics, pediatrics, neurosurgery, oral maxillofacial surgery, neonatal intensive care, ophthalmology and cardiac surgery would move to Harbor-UCLA.
- The county would expedite a $344-million expansion at Harbor-UCLA.
County officials hope this will be enough to stop the cut-off of $200 million in federal funds, but apparently have no assurances. The Medicare spokesman in San Francisco quoted in the Times story, Jack Cheevers, is the former editor at New Times Los Angeles and LAT reporter. Times, Daily News, Breeze