MItch is a good man who did a great job in
SF as director of the AIDS office and then SFDPH. I was shocked but
plesaed that LA hired him but for awhile he seemed to be swallowed up. I
think the reorganization makes sense, could be more efficient and allow
for better coordination. Mental health is always fighting for and
deserving of more resources; his opposition to forcibly medicate persons
with mental illness is not relevant to the re-org.
http://www.latimes.com/local/countygovernment/la-me-mitch-katz-20150929-story.html
My
biggest pet peeve with LA County Health and Hospitals - lack of
qualified and proficient interpreters for patients and family members
with limited-English proficiency required by Federal and often but too
frequently not effectively enforced by OCR, the
agency I worked for. In recent years there were too many anecdotes
about the lack of qualified Spanish-speaking interpreters in LA
County-USC (General Hospital) a facility surrounded by perhaps the
largest Latino community in the nation and a large number of Spanish
speaking staff.
Just
as pathetically, many doctors reported the failure of their attempt at
interpretation by computer or over the internet as being woefully
inadequate, and worse, inaccurate. Admittedly I was forcefully
passionate on this issue from the beginning, before
HIV arose, envisioning an elderly non-English speaker in a hospital
unable to communicate or learn English. OCR did a lot of good on this
issue in a lot of places over the years. My blog may have the
description of our significant effective intervention in Phoenix with
many hospitals in 2002 shortly after the LA office opened, one of OCR's
most notable accomplishment.
But
what has taken me 3 paragraphs to provide background for was the
standoff I could never resolve near the end. Overwhelmed by HIPAA
complaints without the provision of adequate additional resources to
handle them, OCR rejected my pleas - and it may
not surprise you to know they were sorely agitated by my never ending
efforts - to open a discretionary compliance review over the issue at LA
County. OCR is allowed but not required to conduct reviews, it's a
tool used quite effectively over the years. But OCR is required to
investigate complaints and those must be the priority when resources are
limited. Meanwhile the advocates who were the source of many of the
anecdotes I was hearing refused to file a complaint fearing our LEP
Guidance Memorandum not strong enough, despite the fact that bringing LA
County UP to meeting those standards as we had done in Phoenix would
have been a massive improvement and helped so many of those limited
English speakers they claim to represent. Unable to overcome this
standoff or conundrum my biggest frustration.
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