04/30/04

LC040430

Val Zavala>> Tonight on Life and Times --

It began with a dream, but some say it's turned into a
nightmare. We'll look behind the problems at King/Drew Medical
Center.

Dr. Roberta Bruni>> They haven't been giving us nurses and they
have actively prevented us from developing contracts and now
they say we don't have enough patients so we should close down.

Val>> And then, you're never too old to surf the net. We'll
visit a new hangout and meet some plugged-in seniors.

All that and more straight ahead on tonight's Life and Times.

Life and Times is made possible through the generous support of
the L.K. Whittier Foundation dedicated to improving the quality
of life by supporting innovative endeavors in the fields of
medicine, health, science and education.

Val>> It was a hospital created in the wake of the Watts Riots
to serve the population of South Los Angeles, but now forty
years later, King/Drew Medical Center is in crisis. Both
federal and state inspectors are looking into a series of
patient deaths and allegations of inadequate treatment. So what
happened? Toni Guinyard goes to the source in search of some
answers.

Dave Runke>> I think there are a lot of frustrated people here.
You know, there are a lot of people that depend on this
hospital. There are a lot of people that have been here since
it opened in 1972.

Toni Guinyard>> King/Drew Medical Center is operating day to
day under a microscope, public scrutiny reaching a peak after
recent deaths of three patients and the recent loss of
accreditation of two doctors training programs. Administrators
have been suspended. The internal shakeup at both the hospital
and Drew University is exposing the weakness in what many view
as a symbol of strength in the black community.

Dave Runke>> I think it's natural that you see the type of
frustration that you see here with the stories first about the
residency training programs and then about the patient deaths
that we had in June and about the patient deaths in December and
the fact that gets so much play in the newspapers. People are
very frustrated.

Toni Guinyard>> Perhaps even more frustrating is the pressure
to fix the system with no clear-cut prescription on how it
should best be done. To so many in this community, King/Drew
Medical Center is much more than a hospital. It is a piece of
African-American history, a reminder of the fight for civil
rights. It's now being run by a predominantly white transition
team. It's often said that King/Drew was born from the ashes of
the 1965 Watts Riots. In the wake of the Watts Riots, then
California Governor Pat Brown appointed the McCone Commission to
study the riot's cause.

Mervyn Dymally>> Everyone claims they knew it was going to
happen and everyone claims to be some authority. No one knew it
was going to happen.

Toni Guinyard>> Assemblyman Mervyn Dymally represented Central
Los Angeles in 1965. He testified before the Commission.

Mervyn Dymally>> There was a measure of peace before the riots
broke and no one knew the undercurrent, so a lot of people claim
I knew it, but I didn't know it. So I just talked about what
happened when I saw it.

Toni Guinyard>> What happened? The explosion of anger and the
response to it attracted the attention of Dr. Martin Luther
King, Jr. He went to a community meeting in Watts. As seen on
the PBS program, "American Experience", Dr. King's message of
non-violence was not welcomed here.

[Film Clip]

Toni Guinyard>> On April 10, 1968, six days after Dr. King was
assassinated, the groundbreaking ceremony was held for what
would eventually become the King/Drew Medical Center.

Mervyn Dymally>> There are people who believe that that is a
black school. It was born out of the ashes of the black
revolution. This is a community school. I agree with them, but
times have changed. We have a change in demographics. We're
talking about diversity in a white school. We can't not talk
about diversity in a black school.

Toni Guinyard>> Diversity, race. It's just part of the puzzle
that complicates the reform of King/Drew Medical Center.
Another part is funding and that impacts the entire county. On
the cover of a 2002 report compiled by the California State
Auditor is a warning: "Current proposals will not resolve the
budget crisis and, without significant revenue, it may be forced
to limit services." Supporters of King/Drew believe it never
got the funding it deserved. Has it ever been funded properly?

Mervyn Dymally>> No.

Toni Guinyard>> Staffed properly?

Mervyn Dymally>> Especially the nurses, critical shortage of
nurses at Drew.

Carole Jordan-Harris>> "So we need to work together. We need
to make this thing happen. We need to talk only of survival."

Toni Guinyard>> In a meeting for community members, hospital
and Drew University staff, there are so many questions about the
fate of the medical center.

>> "First you said we're going to change, everything to
change."

Toni Guinyard>> Some supporters of King/Drew believe they are
coming under attack despite assurances by the Los Angeles County
Department of Health Services that the goal is to reform
King/Drew, not shut it down.

Fred Leaf>> "Failure is not an option here. We must succeed in
turning this institution around. We're going to recognize
employees that perform. We're going to applaud those employees
and we're going to support them. Those that don't will not be
tolerated."

Toni Guinyard>> There is a lot of talk about restructuring,
rebuilding and reorganizing. Members of the transition team say
this is not the end. They say this is the beginning of another
chapter in the history of the King/Drew Medical Center.

Harry E. Douglas, III>> "Somebody said will the hospital
continue? Yes, it will. Will the school continue? Yes, it
will. We just don't know and no one has a crystal ball that can
tell you what that future is going to be today."

Dr. Roberta Bruni>> This hospital is in the neediest area of
the county where there are no alternative options for care.

Toni Guinyard>> Dr. Roberta Bruni is most concerned about the
future of the neonatal intensive care unit. For years it's been
recognized for its excellence, but as measures are taken to
reform King/Drew, it could become a victim of downsizing.

Dr. Roberta Bruni>> This unit is a modern facility that can
hold many more babies than we're allowed to have nowadays. They
haven't been giving us nurses and they have actively prevented
us from developing contracts. Now they say we don't have enough
patients, so we should close down.

Trycia Wilson>> My baby was born a preemie. He had breathing
problems and he had an artery in his heart still open. If it
wasn't for this hospital being here, my baby would not be here
with me today.

Toni Guinyard>> Trycia Wilson and Jason Maloy's son is in the
neonatal intensive care unit. The couple and their family will
tell anyone willing to listen the importance of the work done
here.

Betty Maloy>> These people have worked hard to keep my
grandchild. They worked real hard and I don't understand why
they're trying to close it up and to take this hospital away
from a lot of people that needs it. All these babies up here in
this prenatal care up here, what they going to do with them?

Toni Guinyard>> Assemblyman Dymally hasn't forgotten what it
was like before King/Drew opened. As Chair of the State
Assembly Select Committee on the King/Drew Medical Center, he
introduced a bill, ACR 139, and received a lot of criticism. It
calls for the formation of a joint management team to advise the
hospital and Drew University.

Mervyn Dymally>> It says, in effect, we are bringing five
medical schools to you headed by an African-American vice
president -- that's a biggie -- who is a product of the Drew
system. The hospital, not so much the school. We want to help.
I think there is acceptance now for ACR 139. I'm backing off.
I'm taking a vacation from Drew.

Toni Guinyard>> Why?

Mervyn Dymally>> Let the good times roll. Let them do what
they have to do. Let me sit back and reflect a little bit
because it's getting a little too messy for me.

Toni Guinyard>> What do you mean?

Mervyn Dymally>> It's conflict between the county and Drew and
the hospital and UCLA and the board is, you know, dysfunctional.
I need a break.

Toni Guinyard>> He'll take a break, but will still monitor
King/Drew. He, like so many others, is tired, but willing to
continue to fight to restore the image of a hospital and medical
school that serves the neediest community in Los Angeles County.

Val>> With all the lawsuits and investigations facing King/Drew
Medical Center, its future is anything but certain. Late last
year, before the new management was installed, one county
official called conditions there horrifying.

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Val>> I'm here at Koreatown and this is the latest internet
café, but it's not just any internet café. This one is
dedicated to seniors. That's right. It's part of a senior
center and these folks are called cyber seniors. They may have
been born at the early part of the twentieth century, but
they're not afraid of twenty-first century technology.

I talked with the Project Director, Nat Kittisarapong, who
graduated from UCLA and is now working at the St. Barnabas
Senior Center in Koreatown. Tell us, how did this come to be?
This is a great idea. Cyber café for seniors.

Nat Kittisarapong>> Right. Two years ago, we started a
computer class for seniors and it became extremely popular.
Then the Executive Director, Martha Spinks, was thinking, well,
one of the biggest problems facing seniors is that seniors are
isolated because as they get older they lose connection with
their family or their friends. So she wanted to develop a place
where they can be educated about the technology of today as well
as get a bit of a connection with their society, with their
friends and perhaps with their family again.

So she thought, well, the general idea of the cyber café is to
come around and have a cup of coffee, you chat and then you surf
the net a little bit. Well, since a lot of the seniors haven't
had any technological education and the computer is very
popular, she decided why don't we make a cyber café for seniors?

Val>> So with a grant from the Borchard Foundation and help
from City Councilman, Ed Reyes, the cyber café came together.
Seniors come in for one-on-one tutoring. The ones who know more
teach the others in their own language. Korean is dominant
here.

[Film Clip]

Val>> Nat is also recruiting volunteer teachers from various
universities, ideally college students who can speak Spanish,
Mandarin, Cantonese, Japanese, Tagalog or Armenian.

Nat Kittisarapong>> Usually the ratio is two to one or one to
one. In other words, one volunteer to one senior or two
volunteers to one senior.

Val>> That's great.

Nat Kittisarapong>> Once or twice a week, I try to conduct
advance classes where we teach seniors more of exactly what's
going on in technology today. For instance, I show them like
what a USB Pen is and then I show them how it --

Val>> -- a what?

Nat Kittisarapong>> A USB Pen.

Val>> I don't even know what that is (laughter).

Nat Kittisarapong>> It's like a little pen that can take about
-- it can go from sixty-four megabytes all the way to one gig of
memory and it's about this small. I like to show the seniors
like what's new in the technology world.

Val>> And speaking of technology, the café is well equipped.
There are laser printers, scanners, digital cameras and
PhotoShop. Each senior has his or her own e-mail account and
they can even communicate with seniors at a second cyber café in
Chinatown.

Nat Kittisarapong>> So the seniors in Chinatown can also see
seniors here. What I started some of the seniors on is using
the web cams so that they know how to at least communicate
through an MSN chat so at least they can talk to each other at
nearby computers and see each other and hear each other.

Val>> Now tell me, everyone says, oh, you know, older people
just can't quite get the hang of the Web and even some of them
have trouble clicking the mouse and so forth. What has been
your experience? How quickly do they learn and what are they
interested in?

Nat Kittisarapong>> Like everybody in a small senior community
is very diverse. We have seniors that have worked the computers
for five years, two years. We have seniors that have never seen
a computer, never heard of a computer, don't even know what the
internet is, but the one thing that they all have in common is
the desire to learn.

What I've come to see is that, as long you are patient and as
long as you do a lot of repetition and give very specific
handouts, then they'll learn on their own as well as learn with
a volunteer and they come in to practice very diligently. In
the beginning, when it comes to like clicking with the mouse
and, you know, problems with dexterity, with shaking or
coordination, what you have to do is work with them a couple of
weeks and try to get the hang of it.

Val>> What is the most popular thing for seniors to do on the
Web? Why do they like to get on the Web? What do they do most?

Nat Kittisarapong> Because they have a diverse ethnicity ratio
here, for a lot of the Korean seniors, they like to go on the
Korean news and find out what's going on in their country, find
out, you know, what's going on with their relatives and their
kids. How to e-mail. So the biggest thing right now for the
Korean community is the e-mail and the news. For the rest of
the seniors, it's very diverse.

Some of the seniors like one of our senior teachers is trying to
publish a book on medicinal plants, so he goes on the internet
to check out pictures, to download pictures, as well as to do
some research. Another one of our seniors likes to play games,
so he likes going on the internet for games. Some of the UCLA
students have taught some of the seniors how to play games that
they've been playing at college, so they do these little battles
(laughter). Others seniors have been interested in researching,
if they have old books, how much they can, you know, auction
their books for.

Val>> Do they get on eBay?

Nat Kittisarapong>> Yes. One of our seniors is particularly
fond of stamps. He buys stamps off eBay like, oh, practically
every day and he's also trying to sell his movie script. So
he's been typing, you know, e-mails to producers and agents and
things like that and trying to get his script sold.

Val>> This is just beginning, right? How many seniors do you
hope will eventually learn? What are your plans? What do you
envision in the future?

Nat Kittisarapong>> I hope that, in the future, the seniors
that have learned will eventually teach new seniors that come
in. I hope this program lasts for many years because one of the
things that I found working here is that seniors have so much
potential and I really, really want the world to see them. The
old saying, "You can never teach an old dog new tricks" is so
wrong, you know what I mean? All it really takes is a little
desire and a lot of practice.

Val>> And the equipment that you've got right here.

Nat Kittisarapong>> And the equipment.

Val>> The aim of the cyber café is not only to make seniors
computer-literate, Nat says computer skills could also open up
some part-time job opportunities.

Nat Kittisarapong>> Even though they've retired, a lot of them
still want to work on something. So what we are planning on
perhaps, you know, is creating like a small entrepreneurial
business for them where they can get hired to burn CDs or to
create newsletters or to create, you know, posters, websites,
things like that.

Val>> That's great. Well, Nat, we wish you all the best
because this is a fantastic idea and we really appreciate your
taking a little time with us. Good luck.

Nat Kittisarapong>> Thank you.

Val>> This cyber senior café will also be used as a lab of
sorts to see how a relaxed social environment like this affects
a person's attitude toward aging and technology.

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Life and Times
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Val>> When Henry Mancini died in 1994, the world lost one of
its greatest songwriters. Henry Mancini had won every award
imaginable, but now he is about to get an honor that is reserved
for a select few. The U.S. Postal Service is issuing a Henry
Mancini Stamp to mark what would have been his eightieth
birthday. Patt Morrison looks back on the songs that made
Mancini a legend and the woman who stood by his side for forty-
seven years, his widow, Ginny Mancini.

[Film Clip]

Ginny Mancini>> He was so turned on by creating the emotion
behind a visual image and that's all he ever wanted to do. He
was fascinated with adding that component to the visual image
and he did it so well. He would sit down and spot where the
music should go with the director and he always came up with the
right flavor. He was always so curious when he worked on a film
to see if it impacted people in a special positive way, so his
first question after a preview of a film was "Did they mention
the music?" Very often, they did.

Patt Morrison>> People who may not even know the name Mancini
can hear a few bars of a certain song and know it.

[Film Clip]

Ginny Mancini>> "Moon River" will probably last long after
we're all gone and it resonates with so many people. It's a
good one.

Monica Mancini>> Dad was writing "Moon River". He'd been
assigned to write the theme song for a film called "Breakfast at
Tiffany's" and he was having a lot of trouble trying to come up
with the melody for the song. He had to work with Audrey
Hepburn who had about an octave range, so he had to come up with
a song within sort of these parameters. He was having a hell of
a time and, for a month, he was struggling over how he was going
to come up with this song. All of a sudden, he got up from
dinner one night and went to the piano and hit three notes. He
got it in about a half hour. He just wrote the whole song. He
used to say it took him a month and a half hour to write "Moon
River".

Ginny Mancini>> People come to me with those stories all the
time. Someone just the other day said that they had just
celebrated their wedding anniversary and reflected back to their
wedding reception and their first dance, which was to "Moon
River". A lot of peoples' first dance was to "Moon River".

[Film Clip]

Patt Morrison>> The music to "Peter Gunn", the television
program, went to the top of the billboard charts and it was on
the charts for two years.

Ginny Mancini>> "Peter Gunn" was a happening. We left on a
trip to Europe before the album was released and, you know, we
had enough money to take a nice trip first-class, but there
wasn't much left when we got home. It was while we were away
that "Peter Gunn" hit. We came home to this extraordinary
happening and it's been good ever since, I must say. That was
kind of the thing that brought him into prominence.

Monica Mancini>> "Peter Gunn" was the song that really put Dad
on the map and it also opened a lot of doors for jazz musicians
at the time to score television and film. They just weren't
doing that at the time.

[Film Clip]

Monica Mancini>> One of the tracks that is my personal favorite
and I think is one of the most beautiful songs on the CD is a
tune called "Two For The Road". That is also Dad's favorite
song that he wrote and, for some reason, his colleagues all say
that that was their favorite song he wrote. There is something
about the way that he put that song together that it takes some
turns and twists that you don't think it's going to.

Ginny Mancini>> It kind of depicts who we are and who we were
and how we started out together young and innocent and just
ready for life and all the valleys and the highs that, you know,
we went through. We were certainly two for the road. We had
forty-seven incredible years together and, unfortunately, he
didn't stick around with me. But in a funny way, he's there.

Patt Morrison>> Do you find yourself even now humming snatches
of his music as you go about your day?

Ginny Mancini>> All the time, all the time. In the middle of
the night, anywhere I go. In the supermarket, you know,
carrying a basket through the supermarket, something will come
on of his and he just won't leave me alone (laughter).

[Film Clip]

Ginny Mancini>> I'm not sure how he managed to cross all genres
of musical styles, but he did it so well. I don't know, he just
got into it. Whatever the assignment was, he'd just put himself
there and was able to come up with the right edge, the right
tenderness, the right romantic element to whatever was needed on
the screen to enhance it. He never considered himself a
songwriter per se. He was not Tin Pan Alley. It's just that
the melodies were extraordinarily beautiful that he wrote for
films that lyricists were clamoring to put a lyric to them, they
were so beautiful. So that's how the songs came to be.

Patt Morrison>> He certainly inspired more than one generation
of young people to write for television, for films.

Ginny Mancini>> Well, I'll tell you something. There are an
awful lot of successful film composers that studied his textbook
sounds and scores and they do give him credit for being a great
mentor. He was very generous with his knowledge and with his
experience and more than one successful film composer gives him
credit for lending a helping hand and steering them in the right
direction and just offering the benefit of his experience.

Patt Morrison>> And so now the year that he would have been
eighty is the year of Mancini. So much is happening. There's a
Henry Mancini Stamp.

Ginny Mancini>> It's the most exciting thing that's ever
happened in my lifetime and it's just such an extraordinary
historic event, the commemorative postage stamp honoring my late
husband. It's an extraordinary happening.

Patt Morrison>> And it must be a first-class stamp. There's
nothing that's anything but first-class about him.

Ginny Mancini>> You bet. First-class all the way.

[Film Clip]

Val>> The sheer numbers from Henry Mancini's career are
staggering. He won four Oscars, twenty Grammies, and has sold
thirty million recordings. And that's our program. I'm Val
Zavala. For everyone at Life and Times, thanks for watching.
We'll see you next time.

Life and Times was made possible through the generous support of
the L.K. Whittier Foundation dedicated to improving the quality
of life by supporting innovative endeavors in the fields of
medicine, health, science and education.

Val>> Next time on Life and Times, two of the predictions have
come true, but should Southern Californians worry about the
latest earthquake warning?

>> The only things that you can really do are to review your
emergency plans. Do your children know how to call you? Do you
know how to figure out that your children are okay? Do you know
what your school safety plans are?

Val>> That's next time on Life and Times.