| Sounds like a great place to work at least. Get paid to vacation and relax. If there weren't dead people all over the place it would be even better. ] For years it has been a heartfelt cry: "This hospital] desperately needs more money!"
 ]
 ] Whenever Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center is
 ] criticized, as it often is, the response from supporters
 ] is the same. They say Los Angeles County leaders never
 ] wanted King/Drew built in the first place â and have
 ] been trying to starve it ever since.
 ] ...
 ] The numbers, however, tell a different story. Though
 ] widely believed, the notion that King/Drew is being
 ] shortchanged is false.
 ]
 ] The medical center spent more per patient than 75% of the
 ] public and teaching hospitals in California, according to
 ] a 2002 state audit that looked at fiscal year 2000.
 ] ;;;
 ] King/Drew's problem is not the amount of money it gets
 ] but the way the money is squandered, according to audits,
 ] financial records, legal filings and dozens of
 ] interviews.
 ]
 ] As at most hospitals, its greatest cost is employees. But
 ] King/Drew, with a staff of nearly 2,500, spends
 ] inordinate sums on people who do little or no work. The
 ] rest of the hospital â hardworking employees, patients
 ] and their families â often make do or do without.
 ]
 ] Here are some examples:
 ]
 ] â¢Â  In the last five years, King/Drew has spent nearly
 ] $34 million on employee injuries â 53% more than
 ] Harbor-UCLA and more than any of the University of
 ] California medical centers, some of which are double or
 ] triple King/Drew's size. Employees make claims for such
 ] things as damage to their "psyche," assaults by their
 ] colleagues and a variety of freak accidents, according to
 ] a Times review of workers' compensation claims.
 ]
 ] â¢Â  Last year, King/Drew employees billed for 299,804
 ] hours of overtime, costing the hospital nearly $9.9
 ] million. That's 61% more than the sum spent by
 ] Harbor-UCLA, which has about 400 more workers. Fourteen
 ] King/Drew employees pulled in more than $50,000 each in
 ] overtime. At Harbor-UCLA, there was one.
 ]
 ] â¢Â  Some employees habitually fail to show up, logging
 ] weeks, even months, of unexcused absences each year. And
 ] those who do come to work often don't do their jobs,
 ] causing one consultant in 2002 to remark that they had
 ] "retired in place." Others are distracted or impaired.
 ] County Civil Service Commission filings tell of staff
 ] members grabbing and clawing each other's necks;
 ] inspection reports tell of patients literally dying of
 ] neglect.
 ]
 ] â¢Â  King/Drew pays its ranking doctors lavishly. Some
 ] draw twice what their counterparts make at other public
 ] hospitals â often for doing less. Eighteen King/Drew
 ] physicians earned more than $250,000 in the last fiscal
 ] year, including their academic stipends. Harbor-UCLA had
 ] nine.
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