May 21, 2020

By Elaine Batchlor, MD, MPH

Special to L.A. Watts Times

 

There are certain things you just don’t do.

You don’t run with scissors.  You don’t stick your finger in a light socket. 

And you don’t cut funding for a hospital doing a great job serving one of the sickest communities in California.

Yet soon, state lawmakers may vote to do precisely that, forced into a corner for lack of federal support. 

The results will be devastating for Martin Luther King, Jr. Community Hospital (MLKCH), which serves a safety-net population of over 1 million highly-vulnerable people in South Los Angeles.

MLKCH has been a shining success story.  It has repeatedly received an “A” grade for patient safety from the prestigious Leapfrog group. 

 

Its patient satisfaction scores rank in the top 10% of hospitals nationwide.  Its all-digital, state-of-the-art systems puts it among the top 6% of hospitals nationwide for technological excellence.  Its compassionate care and excellent results have garnered headlines nationwide and been a source of pride for our community. 

That could end soon. 

Currently lawmakers are considering a proposal by the Governor to revise the State Budget.  Part of that revision involves stripping MLKCH of supplemental funding that enables it to provide high-quality care—funding established as legislation in 2010, key to making the dream of quality health care for an underserved community a reality. 

Those cuts may be reversed if federal funding comes through.  MLKCH patients are 80% Medi-Cal and uninsured. 

 

 

Without that, the scope of services will be dramatically reduced. The quality the hospital is known for throughout the state and nation will diminish.

We are not naive.  We know Gov. Newsom and California legislators face terrible choices to keep our state going during this economically perilous time. And we know that the federal government is stalling on a relief package to support state governments. 

 

It is critical that we assist the Governor and our state lawmakers in advocating for federal support for California and other states.

Both federal and state lawmakers need to ask themselves two questions. 

The first is: How vulnerable is the population that will be affected?

 

By any measure, South Los Angeles is one of the most vulnerable communities in California—and the nation.

Decades of neglect and lack of access to care have produced a population that is sicker than most on almost every measure.  The poverty rate in South L.A. is double the rest of California. 

There is a huge burden of chronic disease - diabetes prevalence is more than three times higher than the state average.  Life expectancy is 10 years lower.

 

Much of this has to do with decades of economic and social neglect.  Underinvestment has taken its toll.   Medi-Cal, the public insurance for the poor, pays doctors such a low rate that few can afford to work in South L.A. 

Not surprisingly, the gap in physicians is 1,200.  It could now grow even larger.

A lack of doctors to treat our community means poor outcomes, advanced chronic conditions and preventable disability and death.   MLKCH was created to change these outcomes, by bringing high-quality doctors and healthcare professionals into our community through a unique funding arrangement with the state. 

We also opened clinics to offer the kind of primary and specialist care that can prevent and manage the chronic conditions that plague and undermine our patients.  If this funding arrangement goes, so too will the doctors that this community desperately needs.

Here’s the second question lawmakers should ask: Is this an effective way to help the most vulnerable?

There’s no point, after all, in funding things that don’t work.  But MLKCH does work.

Further, it is the embodiment of a promise: that South L.A. would never again be left without a hospital and without access to the kind of care it needs and deserves for all its communities. 

 

Behind that promise was the acknowledgment that something was owed to a place that had survived riots, racism, and the repeated failure of the institutions that were supposed to protect them.

It’s rare when a clear need and an effective remedy exist together. It does in South L.A., right now.  If you care about South L.A., find your federal Congress person and ask them to support federal legislation to help the states. 

 

Also, find your assembly member and state senator and tell them to support our hospital.  Contact Gov. Newsom and urge him to protect the health of South Los Angeles: https://govapps.gov.ca.gov/gov40mail/

It’s not too late.  If we raise our voices now in a clear and urgent protest, we can help our leaders keep the promise they made when our hospital opened just five short years ago.  We can continue the process of healing not just patients, but an entire community.

May 21, 2020

By Pastor William D. Smart, Jr.

 

They say what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. But what hasn’t been killing us has actually made us weaker.

Last month, I joined a coalition of more than 50 prominent African American community leaders in Los Angeles to issue 55 demands to public officials on the needs of Black men, women, and children in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The country’s largest cities released numbers showing the novel coronavirus is having a disproportionate impact on racial minorities. Epidemiologists say this is because my Black and Brown brothers and sisters often live close together in multigenerational households, work in jobs in which we interact closely with others, and have higher rates of asthma, hypertension, cardiovascular disease and other conditions. Officials in Los Angeles County said that Black people alone accounted for 17% of COVID-19 deaths where race was known – yet African-Americans make up only about 9% of the county’s population.  

That’s just a fancy way of saying Black and Brown people are getting screwed. Again.

This nexus between health and race was further highlighted when the environment became part of the discourse. Researchers at Harvard University just published a study linking coronavirus deaths and patients with long-term exposure to pollution, especially fine particles. Unsurprisingly, air pollution weakens the immune system. 

The COVID-19 impact is simply a new twist in what I refer to as the same old story. It’s not that pollution per se harms Black and Brown people more; it’s not that the coronavirus per se harms Black and Brown people more.

It’s that poverty creates conditions that make us more susceptible to death, time and again. And 22% of African Americans live at or below the poverty line.

Martin Luther King Jr. said the three major evils of America are racism, poverty, and war. This COVID-19 epidemic has cruelly illustrated another epidemic, one that is so deeply ingrained in our culture, we’ve become accustomed to it. We have allowed those living in poverty to become invisible and it is costing us our lives. 

Enter South Los Angeles, where I have pastored for over 20 years. Historically, this is a predominantly African American community and now a largely Latino community. It is located just south of Downtown Los Angeles at the intersection of the heavily trafficked 110, 105 and 10 freeways, near the world’s third busiest airport. We are no strangers to poor air quality. Communities of color throughout this state often live in neighborhoods with poor air quality, and as a result, disproportionately suffer from environmentally sensitive diseases such as cancer and asthma.

We don’t need expensive, aspirational goals that would take years to make a difference. We need immediate action that saves lives now. 

On the novel coronavirus front, Chicago Mayor Lightfoot shifted larger transit buses into predominantly Black neighborhoods so riders could social distance more easily. Detroit Mayor Duggan coordinated $2 rides for people who wanted to be tested, but don’t have easy transit to testing centers. 

We’re calling on California leaders to be equally decisive and immediate on both the pandemic and pollution front, since we know these issues are inseparable. Eliminating emissions by relying solely on electric vehicles will take considerable time and money – two luxuries that many communities across California simply cannot afford. More extensive public transit is great, but given the size of Los Angeles, it may be more aspirational than practical. 

Let’s work with the solutions we have on hand now. We can upgrade old diesel trucks that pollute our air with near-zero emissions technologies. We can ban highly toxic additives in gasoline that are slowly poisoning our families. We can hold petroleum companies accountable for the damage their products have inflicted on our urban communities, especially as they are poised to get millions, if not billions, in bailout money.

Environmentalism has traditionally been the purview of elite, yet the cost is borne mostly by the down and out. We cannot afford to sit on the sidelines as decision-makers ponder theoretical solutions. Our lives depend on practical and immediate action. It very well might be the key to true strength and survival, not only for my community, but also for all of Earth’s people.

Pastor William D. Smart Jr., Co-Pastor Christ Liberation Ministries President/CEO Southern Christian Leadership Conference -Southern California.

April 30, 2020 

By Maya Richard-Craven 

Special to the LAWT 

 

I come from a long line of Black intellectuals.  My family members migrated across the country by wagon alongside white families, integrated classrooms and courts, and worked their way up to found a legacy at prestigious universities like Stanford and USC. Before being allowed the right to converse with white peers, my ancestors fought and died for the right to be free.

 

A notion I often take for granted, but now feel more connected to than ever because there is a mandated stay-at-home order in the city where I live. The freedom to leave my home has been taken away from me, and I feel afraid that more of my freedoms will be taken away as COVID-19 spreads.

 

As an African American woman, being mandated to stay home makes me think of strict racial codes and rules that were forced on Black people for hundreds of years. I feel that the freedom that my ancestors fought so hard to acquire and preserve has been tarnished in a matter of weeks. I start to experience survivor’s guilt because Black Americans have and continue to be affected by COVID-19 at alarming rates. According to the Center for Disease Control, African Americans make up 30% of COVID cases, even though we are only 13% of the population.

As for fatalities, Black people are twice as likely to die from COVID as white people in the state of New York. Down south, the death rate amongst African Americans is the most drastic. According to data from the Louisiana Department of Health, 70% of COVID related deaths are African Americans.

 

In light of all of this information, I feel a deep sense of fear. I fear that I will lose loved ones or know people who will die. I have started to hear about friends of friends and cousins who are getting sick. I know that I will lose someone who is close to me, seeing the alarming rate at which Black people are being affected by COVID. African Americans only make up 13% of the population, and I worry that COVID will drastically reduce the size of the Black population. I am concerned about what measures are being taken to find a vaccine, a concern I know many Black people have due to our history with the Tuskegee experiments.

I wonder how long the entire nation will have to practice extreme social distancing. I question whether remaining six feet apart will become a permanent way of living. I find it strange not to touch, hug or kiss my parents, siblings, uncles and cousins. I lose hope at the sight of images of Black people crying in New Orleans, which take me back to the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Like everyone else, I wait to see what will happen. But unlike everyone else, I’m part of a community that has spent hundreds of years earning our freedom.

 

My relationship with COVID manifests itself in tears every night, after phone calls with friends who’ve lost another family member in New Orleans, Detroit or Chicago. I watch the death toll of Black people skyrocket each day. I wonder if I’m next. I feel as though the Black community just can’t catch a break up. I feel anger, sadness, and frustration for Black people. I experience survivor’s guilt because I am not living in the deep south, where Black people are being hit the hardest. I lose the motivation to exercise or break the stay-at-home order to take walks.

I find comfort in rich foods and cigarettes, and plan phone calls with friends where we drink together. I experience a collective sense of fear and sadness with my Black peers that other Americans cannot relate to while practicing social distancing. I feel hopeless, and wonder if other Americans feel as afraid as I do. I experience nightmares that involve me forgetting to leave the house without papers allowing me permission to leave. I fear African-Americans will be put into separate housing or quarantine centers because we are being affected by COVID at such a disproportionate rate.

I worry about the government blaming COVID on the Black population. I wonder if my family members’ efforts to fight for freedom and integrated spaces were worth it at all. I find that the strongest feeling I have in response to COVID  is survivor’s guilt. It creeps up on me in the most unusual ways — sweating more than I ever have before, trouble sleeping, vivid nightmares, and cravings for alcohol. My fear isn’t that I will get COVID, my fear is that I will have to continue watching other Black people die for years. I have faith that a vaccine will become accessible to everyone, and like my ancestors, I have to remain hopeful.