Currently making its way through the California Legislature is Assembly Bill 2426, which, if passed, would increase funding for Martin Luther King Jr. Community Hospital. Introduced by Assemblymember Mike A. Gipson (D-Carson), AB 2426 would make it easier for Batchlor and her staff to spend money on prevention and disease management.

“Our vision is to create an integrated healthcare system that provides affordable, accessible, high quality healthcare to people who live in South L.A.,” she told me. “You have doctors in the community, you have programs that address people who have chronic conditions like diabetes and high blood pressure and heart disease. They’re getting the medication and the education they need to manage those conditions and to prevent those conditions from getting worse.”

That sounds like what every neighborhood should have but is sorely lacking on the streets around Martin Luther King Jr. Community Hospital.

By Batchlor’s count, the surrounding neighborhoods — home to hundreds of thousands mostly Black and Latino residents — need an additional 1,300 doctors.

That means that when people get sick, they don’t go see a physician. Instead, they wait, and then they have to go to the emergency room as their primary source of care. All of which explains why so many diabetics in South L.A. have to get their limbs amputated — a procedure of last resort, as my colleagues Joe Mozingo and Francine Orr have reported.

Source: A bill, not a mask mandate, might save South L.A. from COVID – Los Angeles Times