Media spin
So the following article is a perfect example of the rampant epidemic of negative spin in our media today. But who could have foreseen the ripple effect of closing a large inner-city medical center and not reallocating it’s plentiful resources to the rest of the system?
The author of the article makes it surprisingly easy to agree with suggestive wording that the facility in question is not providing adequate medical care to the patients it sees, subtly accusing it’s practitioners of wrongdoing. However, read between the lines and the article states all the facts necessary to make an absolutely contrary conclusion. That conclusion is the remainder of the County medical system is simply weighed down by a combination of patients searching for services no longer available to them from the closed MLK hospital and the lack of resources for the operating facilities to accommodate that additional load. Those resources would provide more available personnel to triage and treat the mass exodus of patients from the newly under served areas. The problem is not lapse in staff provided care, but a resource issue.
How, then, does the problem get corrected? Well, it looks like a citation such as this will get the ball rolling for funding to remedy the shortcomings, so it’s a good thing. Hopefully. Unless someone wants to see the ripples from dropping in a small boulder.
» From the LA Times: (click link or more for article)
