LOS ANGELES – Sheriff’s homicide investigators, the county coroner and the county’s chief administrative office are all investigating the death of a patient who died at a hospital while being taken into police custody.
Edith Isabel Rodriguez, 43, also known as “Chavela”, died at Martin Luther King Jr.-Harbor Hospital May 8 after allegedly writhing in pain on an emergency room floor. Rodriguez’s boyfriend, Jose Prado, claims through an interpreter that hospital staff ignored his pleas for help. Prado then alerted hospital security of the situation, at which point Rodriguez was detained on parole violation charges. As officers pushed her out of the hospital in a wheelchair to take her to the sheriff’s station, Rodriguez became unresponsive and died.
The county’s chief administrative office took over the investigation from the Department of Health Services, which runs the hospital. King-Harbor Hospital, formerly called King/Drew, is undergoing increased scrutiny in this case as it has been the involved in a number of recent scandals involving the largely poor, minority community it serves.
The hospital recently lost its national accreditation and federal funding, resulting in the closing of its trauma center and physician specialist training program. According to an LA Times report, if the hospital cannot regain federal funding later this year, it could be closed due to the excessive expense to the county to operate it.
Rodriguez had visited King-Harbor several times in the days leading up to her death complaining of intense abdominal pain. Doctors diagnosed it as possible gallstones and prescribed pain medication. According to Prado, Rodriguez described her pain as something inside her popping. Later, when he alerted security of Rodriguez bleeding from the mouth, officers allegedly responded in Spanish that it was not blood but chocolate. Results of an autopsy are still pending.
