LOS ANGELES --

The California Legislature may soon get involved in attempts to sort out the troubled Los Angeles County healthcare system, it was announced Wednesday.

State Sen. Mark Ridley-Thomas has proposed the creation of a Senate Select Committee on the Los Angeles County Healthcare Crisis, which will be considered by the Senate Rules Committee on Wednesday afternoon.

Among other things, the county faces a looming $197.8 million Health Services budget deficit, the abrupt resignation of Dr. Bruce Chernof, the director of Health Services, and the breakdown in negotiations to reopen Martin Luther King Jr.-Harbor Hospital.

"The county's healthcare safety net is in crisis, particularly with the inability of the Board of Supervisors to advance a viable plan to reopen King- Harbor..." said Ridley-Thomas, who is also one of the leading contenders in the race for the seat that Yvonne Burke will vacate at the end of this year.

King-Harbor is in the district that Ridley-Thomas is campaigning to represent.

A deal to reopen King-Harbor fell through earlier this month when a management team consisting of executives from Pacific Hospital of Long Beach, the only viable candidate to express serious interest in the project, abruptly pulled out of negotiations.

County officials have said the University of California system is the top choice for reviving the county-run hospital.

Burke said she welcomed the Legislature's help, adding that Ridley-Thomas, who also sits on the Senate Health Committee, could be instrumental in convincing the university to help reopen King-Harbor.

"If he could get them to come forward and join us, that would be a great service," she said. "He has control of their budget."

So far, UC's interest in helping reopen King-Harbor has been limited.

In a written statement, university spokesman Paul Schwartz said "UC is not in a position to assume management responsibility for MLK-Harbor Hospital" but would be willing to aid the decision-making process about the hospital's future.

"...we are willing to consider an arrangement where one or more of our campuses might form an academic partnership with some other entity that would assume such management responsibility," Schwartz said.

County officials have been under pressure to reopen King-Harbor, formerly known as Martin Luther King-Drew Medical Center, as a full-service, teaching hospital since emergency and inpatient services were halted in August.

King-Harbor now operates as an urgent care center. The chief executive recently quit and was given a year's salary in severance pay -- about $261,000.

The reduction of services occurred after King-Drew failed a "make-or- break" inspection by the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and was about to lose its federal funding.

Its closure sparked outrage among residents in South Los Angeles and Willowbrook. The hospital was built in the aftermath of the 1965 Watts riots and was a symbol of efforts to revitalize the area while providing medical services to the area's largely low-income population.

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