Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center Among Southern California Hospitals Fined

State officials Thursday announced that four Southland hospitals were fined a total of $250,000 following investigations that found their failure to comply with licensing requirements caused, or was likely to cause, serious injury or death to patients.

The California Department of Public Health levied $50,000 fines to three Los Angeles facilities -- Barlow Respiratory Hospital, Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center and Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center.

St. Jude Medical Center in Fullerton was fined $100,000.

Barlow Respiratory Hospital staff members were cited for failure to provide attending physicians with enough background information about a patient who went into cardiac arrest and died in 2011. It was Barlow's first administrative penalty.

Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center was fined for failure to follow recommended feeding procedures last year in treating a stroke patient having difficulty swallowing. The patient eventually died. It was Presbyterian's second administrative penalty.

Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center was penalized for a 2011 incident in which a sponge was left inside a patient who underwent abdominal surgery, requiring a second operation. It was the center's first administrative penalty.

St. Jude Medical Center was cited for a 2012 occurrence when erroneous information led surgeons to remove a patient's healthy right kidney instead of the cancerous left one. It was the facility's fifth administrative penalty.   

-City News Service