Any enterprise as tragically dysfunctional as the Martin Luther King Jr.-Harbor Hospital does not need more training or better equipment or aromatherapy for the managers so much as it needs a new start.
A good prescription would be a new owner or at least a new operator from the outside.
Outsiders tend to be favored to take over troubled organizations because they bring a fresh perspective, free of sacred cows and unburdened of past failures. Sometimes it takes an outsider to see more clearly what needs to be done. An insider tends to be tethered to the past and tends to tinker at the margins.
County Supervisor Michael Antonovich, for one, called on the County Health Services Department to start looking now for an outside contractor to take over the hospital if it fails an upcoming federal inspection. But why wait for a federal inspection? Why not bring in a contractor now? The current managers have established a record. They’ve shown us what they’re capable of.
The health department reportedly said the recent troubles at the hospital were an “opportunity to learn.” But when people writhe in pain on the emergency room floor until they die, the opportunity for learning has pretty much passed. This is an opportunity for big change.
Given the long and troubled history of the hospital, maybe a better first step would be to close it as the state is threatening and let the current staff and management scatter to other jobs. Then reopen the hospital some months later with fresh staff and management.
Better still would be a new owner, especially one from the private sector. When the private sector has its own money on the line, discipline follows. Alas, luring a private-sector owner may be difficult, given the harsh economy in which King-Harbor works.
Funny how the Michael Moores of the world, the ones who keep pushing for government to take over the medical system, blithely ignore the tragedies of publicly run medical systems. A government that’s unable to do something as simple as issuing passports in a timely fashion or as basic as stopping millions of people from crossing our border illegally can hardly be expected to efficiently operate complicated medical delivery and payment systems.
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On the facing page are two op-eds that take opposite views regarding the movement to ban plastic grocery bags. Both pieces are among the most thought-provoking and insightful I’ve read on the topic.
I remember how the introduction of plastic bags was almost a revolutionary convenience to shoppers. They’re far easier to carry than bulky paper grocery bags and easy to discard once you get home. They’re cheap, to boot.
At the same time, I think most people would be willing to forego the cost savings and convenience of plastic bags and ban them if and this is a big if they’re convinced that plastic bags pose a true hazard to the environment and if it appears no reasonable way can be developed to recycle them or dispose of them.
The burden is on the environmentalists to make that case.
Charles Crumpley is editor of the Business Journal. He can be reached at
[email protected]
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