Homeless = dump 'em and forget 'em

[AngryOldDem]

<<LOS ANGELES (AP) — Authorities are examining a surveillance tape that shows an elderly woman wandering Skid Row in a hospital gown and slippers as they investigate the practice of hospitals and police agencies dumping homeless people downtown. Carol Ann Reyes, 63, of Gardena, was taken from a Kaiser Permanente hospital in Bellflower on Monday to the downtown area known as Skid Row, authorities said.

A surveillance camera outside the Union Rescue Mission showed Reyes walking from the direction of a taxi that had just driven away. She wandered the street for about three minutes before a mission staff member brought her inside.>>

Several hospitals have acknowledged that they put some discharged indigent patients with nowhere else to go into taxicabs headed to the area because it offers a chance for getting services and shelter. Los Angeles police also are investigating whether other law enforcement agencies dump people without anywhere else to go downtown.

Andy Bales, president the Union Rescue Mission, where Reyes remained, said the incident was the third in the past week in which security cameras caught taxis dropping people in the area. The problem will continue until a coordinated discharge plan between hospitals and shelters is created, he said.>>

Full story here: http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-03-24-patient-dumping_x.htm

Of course the hospital says that this is not "compassionate care" and this violated "established hospital rules." It will "never happen again."

How we treat the poorest among us -- human beings who deserve to be treated with the same respect and dignity as everyone else -- should weigh heavily on all of our consciences, and I think it says much about the condition we are in as a society.

[Breeze54]

1. It's disgusting!!!!

:grr:

And they are doing the same to our Vets!!!
America has it's head up it's ass on a field trip!!

[cantstandbush]

2. Now just think what our press would be saying if Castro were doing this

in Cuba.

[AngryOldDem]

6. This hits me hard...

...because I am a guest attendant at a homeless shelter located within two blocks of the biggest for-profit hospital in the region, which would like nothing more than to see us shut down. In fact, we were planning on having the homeless clinic move in to our facility in order to provide better and more accessible health care to our clients, but the hospital has essentially killed that idea because it doesn't want any more "undesirables" coming into the area. So when they come in physically and mentally ill, we have no choice but to send them up the street where they get little (or no) adequate care. The best illustration of this is a woman who came in one night after having had a miscarriage hours before. She was sick and was bleeding heavily, but the hospital released her anyway. I was scared for her and I kept a close eye on her during my shift. I told her what to look for in terms of worsening symptoms. I was quite ready to send her back to the hospital. (I could not help but contrast her "compassionate care" with the care I received some years back for my miscarriage: I had had a D&C and was kept until it was certain I would not bleed to death. But I'm sure my class status and insurance card had a lot to do with the level of care I received.)

Oh, and we are also the county's drunk tank because the law doesn't want to deal with public intoxication cases anymore.

Centralizing services for the homeless is a great idea, which we have tried to do. It makes sense because of the limited mobility of this segment of the population, as well as for the coordination of social-service agencies, who work closely with each other as they try to help. But the NIMBY principle still holds, even when you are located in a warehouse district, away from residences and most businesses. Yet, everyone cries and gnashes their teeth that "society must do something about the homeless." This especially galls when I hear this after a homeless person has been beaten, or robbed, or killed in the most heinous fashion.

When we see the homeless as human flotsam and jetsam, why are we surprised when they are treated as such?

[bbinacan]

3. Unbelievable

This is truly sickening.:puke:

[Booster]

4. In my opinion, the very least they could do is to take these poor

people to the shelters themselves and make sure they get registered, or whatever, before they leave them there. To just dump someone off in the streets in that area is just plain cruel.

[Caoimhe]

5. In a hospital gown and paper slippers too!

sick society we live in. At least give her some clothes to wear. Christ.

[JuniperLea]

7. Someone should tip off the RW Fundies...

Because however we treat others is how we treat the Lord.

;)

Maybe they can put some pressure on. Hey, use what you got!

[damntexdem]

8. Yes, they intend that it will never happen again:

next time, they'll make sure that drop off on skid row IS NOT TAPED.