Certain Priorities Just Can’t Wait : Horror at an L.A. medical center

The overcrowded, stressed-out conditions that physicians and nurses--and patients--have to endure at an emergency room of a large county hospital are nothing short of shameful. To that description, add downright dangerous.

A man armed with a .44-caliber revolver, a .38 automatic pistol, a sawed-off rifle and a hunting knife shot three doctors Monday at Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center, seriously wounding them. He took a receptionist and another doctor hostage before he surrendered and was arrested.

The nation drew a collective gasp of horror. Nurses, doctors and others familiar with the daily grind--and the common, hours-long waits in emergency rooms--shook their heads. Though they were shocked by the attack, they were not totally surprised that something horrible happened in this place supposedly dedicated to healing. “The conditions,” said one doctor, “are enough to drive anyone berserk.”

However difficult the conditions of the emergency room of County-USC, that’s obviously no excuse for anyone to threaten the lives of dedicated physicians and nurses and waiting patients. The long-term problems exposed by the attack--too many people using emergency rooms as the treatment of last resort because they cannot afford regular medical care, and easy public access to lethal, concealable weapons--will remain until political leaders and everyday Americans decide to comprehensively attack those evils.

But short-term security concerns can and must be addressed more quickly. The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, albeit belatedly, has ordered an immediate review of security practices at County-USC and other county health facilities.

The seemingly never-ending county budget crisis gets the blame for security shortcuts. Yet determining a budget is always a matter of setting priorities. If more safety police--officers with training similar to sheriff’s deputies--are needed, then that’s not a place to cut. If bulletproof glass will allow physicians and nurses to work safely, it must be considered. Even metal detectors, which some worry could be a logistic nightmare in a building with multiple exits or in rooms full of gurneys, must be discussed. These are basic, immediate, lifesaving priorities, and they can’t wait.

The very idea of lots of armed guards, metal detectors and bulletproof glass in a hospital emergency room doesn’t square with an idealized view of what hospitals ought to be. But all of us must face what hospitals have been forced to become--thanks to a health care system that doesn’t work for millions and cheap guns available to virtually anyone who asks.