ADVISORY, March 6, 2007 (PRIME NEWSWIRE) --
WHAT: Press Conference to address multi-million-dollar lawsuit
against Los Angeles County by The Charles R. Drew University
of Medicine and Science for deliberate breaches of contract
resulting from the County's mismanagement and virtual closing
of King-Drew Medical Center. The County's "engineered
catastrophe" destroyed The Charles Drew University's program
for training 248 resident physicians and leaves 1.7 million
already underserved citizens with worse healthcare options
than 40 years ago.
The pending lawsuit, which seeks more than $125 million in
damages, alleges that this "callous decision" to discriminate
against the County's poorest and most medically indigent
residents ultimately inflicted massive "collateral damage" on
The Charles Drew University -- leaving one of the foremost
minority-based medical schools in the nation without an
accredited teaching hospital, causing the loss of millions of
dollars in necessary funding, and casting hundreds of the
University's resident physicians into "educational limbo."
WHO: Dr. Susan Kelly, President and CEO of The Charles Drew
University will review this morning's notification to Los
Angeles County of the impending lawsuit filing in Los Angeles
Superior Court. Under California law, plaintiffs (The Charles
Drew University) must give a governmental entity (Los Angeles
County) 45 days' notice before filing a lawsuit.
WHEN: Tuesday, March 6, 2007 at 11:00 a.m.
WHERE: The campus of The Charles Drew University, 1731 East 120th
Street, Los Angeles, California 90059. The Conference will be
held in the foyer of the Cobb Building. Parking in front of
the building on 120th Street and directly across the street,
behind the building on 118th Street.
Directions from downtown Los Angeles: Take the 110 or 405
Freeway south, to the 105 Freeway east (toward Norwalk). Exit
Wilmington Avenue, turn right to 120th Street, turn right.
ABOUT THE CHARLES DREW UNIVERSITY:
A private non-profit educational institution in the
Watts-Willowbrook area of South Los Angeles, The Charles R.
Drew University of Medicine and Science has provided quality
college, graduate and post-graduate education and training to
thousands of qualified minority and other students for more
than 35 years. As part of its mission, the University has also
provided urgently needed healthcare services to over 1.7
million chronically underserved residents of the poorest
communities in Los Angeles County.
The University is widely regarded as an innovative medical
education university pioneering in teaching doctors and
healthcare professionals, and in conducting quality research,
to deal with the special needs of the poor, chronically ill
populations in the inner city. Over the years, the University
partnered with the County under a series of contracts to
provide King-Drew Medical Center with faculty doctors, medical
students, interns and residents to serve the 1.7 million
citizens in its 94-square-mile service area. (If this service
area were a municipality, it would be the fifth largest city
in the U.S.). The University has been remarkably successful
in achieving its primary goal of producing physicians and
other healthcare professionals who return to the community to
serve people who are uninsured or underinsured.
A copy of the notice and attached complaint may be found later today on The Charles Drew University website at http://www.cdrewu.edu.