Los Angeles County supervisors Tuesday backed off a threat to begin closing Martin Luther King Jr.-Harbor Hospital, opting instead to give the beleaguered facility a reprieve as it prepares for a last-chance government inspection next month, the Los Angeles Times reports.

The board shelved a motion that would have started the clock ticking toward shutting the facility near Willowbrook after its top healthcare officials warned the move could trigger a stampede of departing employees that would in turn undermine efforts to pass the federal survey.

Others decried the effects of a closure on patients and nearby hospitals, which have dealt with a string of emergency room closures over the last few years. King-Harbor is the only public hospital serving a large swath of South Los Angeles. It treated 47,000 emergency room patients last year.

Closing the hospital early is “a callous approach to people,” said Supervisor Yvonne B. Burke, who represents the area and had been criticized for not speaking out in recent days. “Someone has to take a position that the people of Los Angeles County who are poor, who are uninsured, have medical care.”

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