Olive View hit with fines

The San Fernando Valley's Olive View-UCLA Medical Center, long viewed as the "crown jewel" of Los Angeles County's public hospitals, was fined $50,000 by state health officials Wednesday in connection with two patient deaths late last year. Troy Anderson in the Daily News.

The fines are the first for Olive View and come just six months after the state Department of Public Health launched an investigation at the hospital after a surgical device caught a patient on fire and another patient died from oleander poisoning when an Office of Public Safety commander refused to pick up an antidote at a nearby hospital.

The two $25,000 fines for two incidents at the public hospital in Sylmar are Olive View's first. Among the fines handed out Wednesday, Scripps Memorial Hospital in San Diego was the only other hospital in the state to receive more than one.