Supervisor Urges Probe of Hospital Staffing

Responding to the case of a South Los Angeles man who died in a hospital after his gunshot wound went untreated for six hours, county Supervisor Yvonne Brathwaite Burke on Tuesday called for a probe of staffing levels at all county hospitals to determine if the facilities have enough doctors.

The Board of Supervisors agreed to put Burke’s motion on the agenda for their meeting next week, saying they could not vote on it Tuesday because it had not been publicly posted.

Torin Comeaux, 31, died April 13 after the Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center staff was unable to locate any of its four vascular surgeons to operate on his injured knee, even though the trauma center is contractually required to have such a specialist within 30 minutes of the operating table at all times. He died at County-USC Medical Center after more than seven hours of surgery there. County officials are investigating the case.

“I think that unfortunately we [supervisors] react to catastrophes, and we react, often, rather than trying to prevent things in the future,” said Burke, who represents the South and Central Los Angeles district that includes the hospital.