Thanks to a generous award from the Ralph M. Parsons Foundation in September 2017, the Martin Luther King, Jr. Community Hospital (MLKCH) will soon be able to offer South Los Angeles patients life-saving diagnostic and treatment services closer to home.
The new endoscopy suite at MLKCH will help patients by diagnosing and treating gastrointestinal illness, various cancers, benign tumors, ulcers, and gallbladder disease.
Often, endoscopies help prevent more invasive open surgical procedures that require longer hospitalizations and create higher financial burdens and stresses for patients and their families.
Ozell DiazMLKCH PeriOperative Director
MLKCH expects to provide at least 700 endoscopic procedures in its first year of services. This is welcome support for the 7,000 patients cared for monthly at the hospital’s Hope Emergency Center, many of whom will now be cared for before their conditions progress as a result of Parsons’ generosity.
"Often, endoscopies help prevent more invasive open surgical procedures," says Ozell Diaz, PeriOperative Director at MLKCH, who will oversee the new endoscopy suite. "More invasive surgeries require longer hospitalizations and create higher financial burdens and stresses for patients and their families. With endoscopy at MLKCH, patients can be feeling better—and be back at home—sooner."
The gift from the Ralph M. Parsons Foundation joins generosity from the Ahmanson Foundation in April 2017, completing financial support for this critical inpatient service.
Building an endoscopy suite is part of the hospital's planned expansion of services to address patient need, and to keep patient treatment within the community. In addition to the endoscopy suite, MLKCH has received private support for a Computerized Tomography (CT) scanner suite, which plans to welcome patients for treatment in March 2018.