In mid-December, a woman in her early 40s with severe abdominal pain and unexplained weight loss was referred to a gastroenterologist at Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center.
The specialist said she would have to wait two and a half months for an appointment. Then she learned she’d have to wait another two and a half months for an MRI scan of her intestines. And four months for a colonoscopy. The news was frustrating but not a shock— the county hospital system had recently kept her waiting two years for a mammogram, she said.
Her experience mirrors those of thousands of other patients who for years have faced delays to see specialists at Los Angeles’ county-run hospitals — waits that have cost some patients their lives.
