Sounds just like Kaiser. :)
Well where else are they expected to dump them? :)
http://abclocal.go.com/kfsn/story?section=state&id=3669892
Hospitals Send Patients to L.A.'s Skid Row
AP
November 26, 2005 - Three hospitals acknowledged putting
discharged patients with nowhere else to go into taxicabs heading
to the city's downtown skid row, the Los Angeles Times reported.
Representatives of Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center, Kaiser
Permanente West Los Angeles and Martin Luther King Jr./Drew
Medical Center said they were helping patients because skid row
offers their best chance of getting services and shelter. They
said patients are sent to skid row only if they are healthy
enough.
"One of the challenges is that there are very few places that
will take patients coming out of the hospital, even when they are
medically cleared," said Mehera Christian, a spokeswoman for
Kaiser Permanente Metro Los Angeles. "There are just a scarce
number of places in the community to assist our homeless."
The hospitals were the first to acknowledge delivering people to
skid row. A Los Angeles Police Department report had accused the
three hospitals and several suburban law enforcement agencies of
leaving homeless people and criminals downtown. The suburban
departments deny the accusation.
LAPD officials agreed that the hospitals have few other choices,
but said the practice only adds to grim conditions on skid row.
They disputed the hospitals' assertion that the patients were
always ready for release.
Earlier this week, city and state officials pledged a new fight
against problems in the neighborhood, including drug dealing that
police say generates roughly one-fifth of the city's drug
arrests.
Officials at the three hospitals said they don't simply dump the
patients.
Hospital social workers usually meet with patients to try to
connect them with agencies or groups that could help them, then
provide them transportation, Christian said. She said about half
of patients say where they want to go, and none are forcibly
taken anywhere.
Joseph Epps, an attorney for Hollywood Presbyterian, said
hospital policy calls for homeless and indigent patients to be
transported by hospital van to the Los Angeles Mission on skid
row or to receive taxi vouchers to go wherever they want.
LAPD Capt. Andy Smith said patients don't always reach their
destinations, and that he often sees "individuals with not one
but sometimes two different hospital bracelets, and people with
bandages on, people who are barely ambulatory, and we'll end up
calling an ambulance. Sometimes they are in such bad shape they
are incoherent."
LAPD Assistant Chief George Gascon said services should be spread
across the area so skid row doesn't bear too much of the load.
--
Devil's Advocate
.
|
