New LA County-USC Hospital Is Too Small – Los Angeles Supervisors Looking for Money to Add 150 Beds

Back in October 2008 the new facility opened, state of the art and now we are less than 2 years later and the hospital is over crowded with patients in the hallways. At the time of planning both budgets and technologies were studied to determine how many beds were going to be needed and it looks like the plans were wrong and granted a lot has happened since the planning stage and building the facility. It is a state of the art facility with robots and a top notch lab facility but if it is too small and enough patients can’t be seen the overcrowding persists. You can read my write up from October 2008 and see how modern and what a great facility it is with all the latest technology at the link below.

LAC+USC Hospital – New Facility to Open Soon - Los Angeles

With budget cuts it was built for 600 beds instead of 750 and this is the result, another part of the debate issue and small won out. The hospital has robots and a state of the art lab. The link above gives some additional details about the facility.

The health department faces a nearly $600-million deficit unless it can secure more federal funding. Plans are also in the works to reopen an emergency room and inpatient services in Willowbrook, the former Martin Luther King Jr.-Harbor Hospital that was closed. BD

Two Los Angeles County supervisors Tuesday introduced a proposal to study the addition of 150 beds to Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center, the county's overcrowded flagship hospital.
The proposal comes about a week and a half after The Los Angeles Times reported that severe overcrowding was routine at County- USC, which in 2008 moved into a new $1.02-billion facility with 224 fewer beds. In May, the hospital's emergency room was deemed overcrowded about 80% of the time, with conditions considered severe or dangerous for half of that month.
"The right-sizing of L.A. County-USC Medical Center is unfinished business," Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas said. "This is the flagship trauma center of L.A. County … and every single county resident has something at stake in the viability of L.A. County-USC Medical Center."

L.A. County supervisors seek information on expanding County-USC hospital - latimes.com