Unbelievable! Dumped like garbage!

[3113]

Unconscionable! Even the homeless on Skid Row were appalled.

Paraplegic allegedly 'dumped' on skid row
A paraplegic man wearing a soiled hospital gown and a broken colostomy bag was found crawling in a gutter in skid row in Los Angeles on Thursday after allegedly being dumped in the street by a Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center van, police said.

The incident, witnessed by more than two dozen people, was described by police as a particularly outrageous case of "homeless dumping" that has plagued the downtown area.

"I can't think of anything colder than that," said LAPD Det. Russ Long, who called the case the most egregious of its kind that he has seen in his career. "There was no mission around, no services. It's the worst area of skid row."

Los Angeles Police Department detectives said they connected the van to Hollywood Presbyterian after witnesses wrote down a phone number on the van and took down its license-plate number.

They are questioning officials from the hospital, which the LAPD had accused in an earlier dumping case that is now under investigation.

Witnesses shouted at the female driver of the van, "Where's his wheelchair, where's his walker?"

Gary Lett, an employee at Gladys Park, near where the incident occurred, said the woman driving the van didn't reply, but proceeded to apply makeup and perfume before driving off.

"She didn't make any attempt to help him," Lett said. "He was in bad shape. He was incoherent."

Kaylor Shemberger, executive vice president for Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center, said, "Obviously we are very concerned about the information that has been presented to us. We are continuing to investigate the incident. If some of the facts are correct, it is clearly not in line with our policy of handling these types of patients."

When the hospital was previously accused of dumping in 2005, a top executive said the facility takes discharged patients to Los Angeles Mission at their request.

The case comes three months after the L.A. city attorney's office filed the first indictment for homeless dumping against Kaiser Permanente. The charges stem from an incident earlier last year when a 63-year-old patient from Kaiser Permanente's Bellflower medical center was videotaped as she stepped from a taxi in gown and socks and then wandered the streets of skid row.

Los Angeles officials have accused more than a dozen hospitals, as well as some outside law enforcement agencies, of dumping patients and criminals on downtown's troubled skid row. The city attorney's office said it was considering filing charges against several other medical facilities.

Police describe the homeless people who congregate around Gladys Park, in the heart of skid row, as a tough crowd who have seen much and say little.

But there was no shortage of people willing to describe what they saw about 10:45 a.m. Thursday morning, when the white hospital van pulled up several feet from the curb.

"They were lining up to give their story," Long said. "They were collectively appalled. We were as shocked as the homeless folks."

Witnesses told police that the man propped himself up in the door of the van. He then hurled himself from the vehicle, tumbling to the street. He pulled himself along, dragging a bag of his belongings in his clenched teeth.

Police said several people began shouting at the driver, who in addition to applying makeup was more concerned that the seats of the van had been soiled, investigators said.

LAPD Officers Eric de la Cruz and Pernell Taylor said they arrived to find the man being carried out of the street on a chair that had been retrieved from the nearby park offices.

De la Cruz later asked the victim if he had wanted to be dropped off at the location.

"He said he had nowhere else to go, and the hospital staff told him he could no longer stay there," De la Cruz said of the man, who is being treated at County-USC Medical Center.

The LAPD has accused several hospitals of dumping patients on skid row over the last two years, including Kaiser's West Los Angeles hospital, Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center and Los Angeles Metropolitan Medical Center.

Officials at those hospitals have denied dumping patients, but some said they had taken homeless patients to skid row service providers. In 2005, at attorney for Hollywood Presbyterian denied that the hospital had dumped patients, but he said skid row service providers offered treatment and care for some patients who had nowhere else to go.

 

[Jenny_Jackson]

Unconscionable! Even the homeless on Skid Row were appalled.

It's a sign of the times, 3. The Bush Administration has cut funding for homeless care. The hospitals either have to dump the indegent or foot the cost of caring for the homeless.

To make matters worse L.A. County is prosecuting the hospitals for doing this, so instead of dropping them at what overcrowded homeless shelters there are, the dump them on the streets where no one will notice.

It's a sad commentary on America today.

 

[rgraham666]

In our society the poor and the sick are sinners.

And we don't care much for the fate of sinners.

 

[R. Richard]

Shoot the wounded!

 

[Svenskaflicka]

But atleast he was never aborted.

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

It's a sign of the times, 3. The Bush Administration has cut funding for homeless care. The hospitals either have to dump the indegent or foot the cost of caring for the homeless.

To make matters worse L.A. County is prosecuting the hospitals for doing this, so instead of dropping them at what overcrowded homeless shelters there are, the dump them on the streets where no one will notice.

It's a sad commentary on America today.

Actually, my understanding is that the current administration has greatly increased funding in this area, and I know for certain that it has a major new initiative underway, led by an individual who is very passionate about the problem. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a Bushie (or a Republican) by any means (I'm a libertarian, or classical liberal to be precise), but one should not don't believe everything one reads in the leftist fever swamp blogs. Plus, "America today" does not resemble in any way the Dickensian house of horrors described in such places - you know that, Jenny J. You don't have to let your political animus with the current administration obscure your view of reality.

Finally, I would not accept at face value the characterization of events in this story, either. If anyone bothers to dig a little deeper the truth of this incident almost certainly will be found to not at all resemble what has been portrayed here (which so conveniently fits a storyline that so many have written before the news even happens.) No, I'm not Pollyanna - I believe all kinds of bad shit happens. But, if and when any real reporting takes place in stories like this one, they inevitably blow up and embarass those who bought in.

 

[SeaCat]

Why does this surprise anyone here when we have had ever so many conversations about making money in bussiness?

Think about it. Does a homeless person make money for the hospitals or the Rehab Centers or even the shelters?

As has been said here before, if you have an employee that is not making you money because they are not as productive as the other emplyees then you get rid of them. Good bussiness practice. The same for anyone else who is causing you to lose money.

Cat

 

[Huckleman2000]

Actually, my understanding is that the current administration has greatly increased funding in this area, and I know for certain that it has a major new initiative underway, led by an individual who is very passionate about the problem. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a Bushie (or a Republican) by any means (I'm a libertarian, or classical liberal to be precise), but one should not don't believe everything one reads in the leftist fever swamp blogs. Plus, "America today" does not resemble in any way the Dickensian house of horrors described in such places - you know that, Jenny J. You don't have to let your political animus with the current administration obscure your view of reality.

Finally, I would not accept at face value the characterization of events in this story, either. If anyone bothers to dig a little deeper the truth of this incident almost certainly will be found to not at all resemble what has been portrayed here (which so conveniently fits a storyline that so many have written before the news even happens.) No, I'm not Pollyanna - I believe all kinds of bad shit happens. But, if and when any real reporting takes place in stories like this one, they inevitably blow up and embarass those who bought in.

I don't know that this is from a "leftist fever swamp blog", but that sounds a lot like something a Bushie would say- there's no source in 3113's quote. Your defense of the status quo would be a bit more believable were it not for the fact that the budget just submitted by Bush proposes killing funding for a program that provided a $20 bag of groceries a month for poor elderly people while extending the tax cuts for the wealthy.

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

I don't know that this is from a "leftist fever swamp blog", but that sounds a lot like something a Bushie would say- there's no source in 3113's quote. Your defense of the status quo would be a bit more believable were it not for the fact that the budget just submitted by Bush proposes killing funding for a program that provided a $20 bag of groceries a month for poor elderly people while extending the tax cuts for the wealthy.

Non-sequitor.

I couldn't care less about Bush, he's just a big government statist in religious garb as far as I'm concerned, but I am bugged when people just make shit up.

Feb. 6, 2007
President’s Budget Increases Homeless Assistance; Cuts Housing Programs
http://www.endhomelessness.org/content/article/detail/1465

Yesterday, President Bush released the Administration's fiscal year 2008 budget proposal, which sought increases for homeless assistance funding, but significant cuts to mainstream housing and service programs. The President’s budget proposes increasing funding for the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) homeless assistance programs by $144 million to $1.586 billion.

from wiki:

The Interagency Council on Homelessness (ICH), the federal branch responsible for overseeing homeless policy that was created under the McKinney-Vento Act, is now attempting a new approach to combat homelessness. For the first time, government officials are calling for an end to homelessness. To accomplish this goal ICH has adopted a strategy largely devised by the National Alliance to End Homelessness (one of many homeless advocacy organizations), which centers on the production and implementation of local 10-year plans to end chronic homelessness. The idea is to get all of the necessary parties—local/state governmental agencies, businesses, non-profit organizations, service providers, faith-based entities, and homeless (or formally so) individuals—working in collaboration to devise and implement a 10-year plan for their respective community.[35]

Rather than channeling funds into direct services that seemingly sustain homeless lifestyles, these result-oriented plans are designed to focus efforts and funds on the creation of permanent supportive housing (PSH) for the most troubled and difficult, “chronic” homeless population. Considering that it is actually cheaper to house someone than it is to fund the otherwise needed myriad services, this approach is touted as being a cost-effective solution.[36]

Many service providers applaud the government’s focus on ending homelessness, as opposed to managing it, and realize the necessity of incorporating all sectors of society in order to accomplish such a goal. However, critics express concern that the majority of the homeless population, who are not considered “chronic,” will be neglected; if federal funds are stipulated only for this 10% demographic—although no doubt deserving—what will become of the other 90%? These concerns are exacerbated by a failure to receive sufficient additional allocations while already struggling with budgets spread extremely thin.

Presently, no plan has been in effect for a full 10-years so achievement is difficult to gauge; the best indications reveal mixed success. Although many cities have seen chronic numbers dip, it is unclear whether or not homelessness as a whole is decreasing. The hope is that necessary modifications can be made to existing plans, and that newly devised plans can implement the strategies that work and avoid the ones that don’t.

 

[S-Des]

I have to agree with Roxanne. Although there may be a lot of truth in this, who really believes that someone illegally dumped someone on the street, then paused to apply make-up and perfume (while being shouted at by onlookers) before driving away? That doesn't sound remotely believable.

 

[Liar]

I have to agree with Roxanne. Although there may be a lot of truth in this, who really believes that someone illegally dumped someone on the street, then paused to apply make-up and perfume (while being shouted at by onlookers) before driving away? That doesn't sound remotely believable.

Unlerss we're talking about one isolated bona fide psycho. Could happen. Worse have happened.

 

[SimonBrooke]

Plus, "America today" does not resemble in any way the Dickensian house of horrors described in such places - you know that, Jenny J. You don't have to let your political animus with the current administration obscure your view of reality.

Well, from the civilised side of the Atlantic, it sounds quite as bad as anything Dickens wrote about. I mean, don't get me wrong, bad stuff happens here too. But not in that league.

 

[matriarch]

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-dumping24oct24,0,372528.story?coll=la-home-headlines

http://cnn.ch/2007/US/02/09/homeless.dumping.ap/index.html

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6376588

 

[matriarch]

Well, from the civilised side of the Atlantic, it sounds quite as bad as anything Dickens wrote about. I mean, don't get me wrong, bad stuff happens here too. But not in that league.

I wish you hadn't said that......you just KNOW that someone is going to start digging until they come up with something equally as bad.

 

[oggbashan]

I wish you hadn't said that......you just KNOW that someone is going to start digging until they come up with something equally as bad.

We don't have to look very far. Care in the Community for the Mentally Ill (or whatever the latest PC description is for 'Mentally Ill') is chronically underfunded. Locally we often see people in severe distress wandering the streets because their carers are unable to cope with the numbers of cases for each worker. In extremis, the Police will help, but they get annoyed when they have to retrieve the same person several times a week.

It is estimated that one-third of the UK population will have an episode of mental illness during their lifetime. Funding doesn't reflect that.

More than half our local street-living people are considered to be mentally ill. We are lucky that we have several agencies working with them and almost no one is unknown and unable to get assistance but an individual's distress is still real.

As for the proportion of our prison population who should really be receiving care for mental illness? The closure of mental hospitals, while good for a few, was disastrous for the many. People who are at risk of self-harm have few places of safety, and self-harm is much more likely than a mentally ill person harming another. When someone else IS harmed, the system is blamed when it is really the lack of resources and the overloading of case-workers.

What use are warning signs, and appeals by the individual and their family for help, when there is nowhere for the individual to be treated safely?

We are not exempt, despite our Health Service. Mental Health is an easy budget to cut. It doesn't have the appeal of babies or breast cancer.

Og

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

"Homelessness" in the U.S. is a sad reality that for the most part has nothing to do with "bad economy" or "Dickensian" social system. Despite the cynical manipulation of the issue for political purposes it is widely recognized that most of the chronically "homeless" are alcholics, addicts or mentally ill individuals.

In a previous era the last group was confined in state mental hospitals, often involuntarily.* As a society we are very conflicted about how to deal with people who refuse to accept the services that are available and instead choose to place themselves in a situation where they are a threat to themselves. We are unwilling to just round them up and place them -somewhere, even if the "somewhere" is someplace decent and not an inhumane hellhole of a "shelter." Legilslation to do so is introduced in state legislatures every year and it does not pass because of this conflict.

The organization referenced in my previous post is the one most closely identified with a serious-minded, comprehensive approach that is currently underway in a number of cities, and now is receiving a major push and funding increase from the federal government.

As Og points out, let he (the society) who is without sin throw the first stone. There are likely "sins" on all sides, but they are not the ones that are usually alleged. The fact is this is a 'hard case' of a problem. There is an existential reality here - the presense of mentally ill people in the human population, some of whom follow a course that leads to living on the street - and we just don't know how to fix it or deal with it. Gobs of money have been thrown into all kinds of simplistic approaches, and they don't work.

America (and Europe) are wealthy, compassionate societies. We can afford doing what is necessary to allow these people to live less painful existances - we just don't know how to do it.


*In an even earlier era they were taken care of within the smaller non-anonymous communities that were typical, or - lets be frank - many were probably dispatched, either directly or indirectly by excluding them from human society. A society unable to produce the massive surpluses industrial civilization produces could not afford many free riders. We can discuss the philosophical issue of the extent to which industrial civilization may create conditions that lead to certain forms of alienation and mental illness, but it's just wool-gathering, because we're not going back to the caves or "the village." Most of us like it here.

 

[rgraham666]

As someone who has suffered from mental illness, I'm well aware of the lack of caring for people like me.

It's a bad side effect of our love of freedom and lack of understanding.

We don't understand mental illness and so decide anyone who becomes ill that way has made a choice. All they have to be is a little stronger or a little smarter and they wouldn't be sick.

As I said this 'choice' makes them sinners and we don't support sinners.

 

[3113]

Finally, I would not accept at face value the characterization of events in this story, either. If anyone bothers to dig a little deeper the truth of this incident almost certainly will be found to not at all resemble what has been portrayed here (which so conveniently fits a storyline that so many have written before the news even happens.)

My apologies, Roxanne. This was a legitimate news story reported in the L.A. Times. It was not rumor, tabloid or urban myth. And there is a HISTORY of hospitals dumping patients on Skid Row. This is not the first time it's happened or been investagated--and the reports of the man's condition--wearing a hospital gown AND with a hospital bracelet still on his arm, were police reports.

It's valid reporting of valid and appalling facts.

Here's more (bold text mine to emphasize that this is not a wild story coming out of left field):

LOS ANGELES - Even on Skid Row, it was shocking: a paraplegic man in a soiled gown sliding along the sidewalk with his hands, clutching a plastic bag with his belongings between his teeth.

Police said the man, who was dragging a broken colostomy bag behind him, was dumped on the sidewalk Thursday in one of the worst parts of the city by the driver of a hospital van. The area is the same location where city officials say hospitals have dumped the homeless before.

Witnesses, all homeless people, began shouting, "Where is his wheelchair? Where is his walker?" Detective Russ Long said Friday. They told officers the driver responded that the man defecated in the van and had to be removed.

"If there is an explanation it just eludes me at this point," Long said.

"He was sliding along on his bottom using his hands. He had a hospital property bag in his mouth, in his teeth, and he was trailing a colostomy bag, which was malfunctioning."

Witnesses told police a van from Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center pulled up to a tiny park in the grimy area near downtown at 10:45 a.m. Thursday, a side door opened and a man, dressed in a green hospital gown and pants, began struggling to get out. The driver looked on.

"His pants fell around his ankles. He fell onto the curb with his legs dangling onto the street," Long said. "He reached down and grabbed his pants, pulled his legs onto the sidewalk. Witnesses said the van would have run over his legs if he hadn't have done that."

Homeless people in the area helped the disoriented man into the park. A police bicycle patrol arrived by chance within a minute and called an ambulance.

The 41-year-old man's name was not released, but he was wearing a bracelet from the hospital, Long said.

Dan Springer, a spokesman for the medical center, did not confirm or deny that the van carrying the man came from Hollywood Presbyterian. He said an internal investigation was under way and pledged cooperation with any outside investigation.

"These are very serious allegations. Our goal is to get to the bottom of exactly what happened. If we determine a mistake of this magnitude was made, we will respond swiftly and appropriately," Springer said.

The man was taken to another hospital. Police did not disclose his condition.

The case comes three months after the city attorney's office filed its first indictment alleging homeless dumping, against Kaiser Permanente Hospital. In that case, a 63-year-old patient from the hospital's Bellflower medical center was videotaped wandering the streets of Skid Row in a hospital gown and socks.

Kaiser has said it has taken steps to see that no more of its patients are left on Skid Row.

City officials have accused more than a dozen hospitals of dumping patients and criminals on Skid Row. Hospital officials have denied the allegations, but some said they had taken homeless patients to Skid Row service providers.

In 2005, Hollywood Presbyterian was accused of homeless dumping. At the time, a top executive denied the charge, but said Skid Row service providers offered treatment and care for some patients who had nowhere else to go.

This was not an isolated incident, blown out of proportion, the facts all skewed. Whether the hospital knew or not can be debated, whether the driver said anything or put on make up can be debated, but that this man, in hospital gown, with hospital wrist band, with hospital property bag was dumped, sans wheel chair, in the street to crawl in the gutter...that is not in dispute.

 

[Jenny_Jackson]

"Homelessness" in the U.S. is a sad reality that for the most part has nothing to do with "bad economy" or "Dickensian" social system. Despite the cynical manipulation of the issue for political purposes it is widely recognized that most of the chronically "homeless" are alcholics, addicts or mentally ill individuals.

Roxanne, I realize I'm an asshole, but I don't believe the "economic indicators" used by our government. I have my own.

I count the number of panhandlers waiting at freeway exits and shopping mall parking lots. Oddly, it works. The two times in my life when this country was in genuine economic trouble and denied by the ruling administration -

Under George H.W. Bush and again under George W. Bush. It is under both of these presidents that I've seen beggers competing with each other at freeway exits and shopping malls.

This has nothing to do with the "chroniclly homeless." This is about the chroniclly deseased state of the economy. I had a neighbor tell me she was turned down for a waitress job yesterday because they hired an out of work design engineer from Intel with a Masters Degree.

In 2001 the Federal Budget slashed help for the homeless by 2/3rds. Over the next 5 years the budget has increased to about 70% of the 2000 level. In the current budget issued last week, it was again cut to below the 2001 level.

The Bush plan to "balance the budget by 2012" is just another example of his administration coddling the very rich and leaving the mess for someone else to clean up.

Meanwhile, we see stories like this one in L.A. where hospitals are dumping indigent on skid row. But it's not just an L.A. problem. They have been doing it in New York and elsewhere too.

Your contention that the homeless are chronic alcoholics, mentally deseased etc. is just sad. You sound like this is what they deserve.

We have looked after those people for generations through social services. Now I look around and all the shelters we have supported are closed due to lack of funding. We have them sleeping in open doorways in freezing weather. Some are dying from exposure. Is that destined to be all they have to look forward to? I'd be driven to drink too.

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

My apologies, Roxanne. This was a legitimate news story reported in the L.A. Times. It was not rumor, tabloid or urban myth. And there is a HISTORY of hospitals dumping patients on Skid Row.

Oh 3, I could tell it was a news story from a "real" newspaper - I never thought you had taken it from some source generally considered unreliable. And it does indeed appear that there seems to an issue involving certain health care providers in L.A. who may be at the very least pulling a 'hear, see, speak no evil' stunt. It is a fact, however, that the first impression given by such lurid news stories rarely stands up, and the story is found to be much more nuanced and multilayered. However, those details come out much later and are reported at the bottom of page 37 in the "E" section, if at all. I have little doubt that this will be the situation here.

In any event, attempts to characterize such bizarre abberations as typical of the U.S. health care system and society in general are completely off base. Hey people - this is "man bites dog": It's news because it's unusual. If it was typical it wouldn't be "news."

With regard to whether the U.S. is a Dickensian hellhole, with half the population one-meager paycheck away from penury and desperation, it's pretty clear that I will never convince some very political individuals that this is a bizarrely skewed characterizaton. I know, I am highly political myself, and at risk of having a skewed perception in the opposite direction. However, two things convince me that while we have not acheived utopia, the vast majority of U.S. citizens are doing pretty well. First, while statistics can be used to lie, any fair-minded appraisal of a host of statistics both government and other show that economic basket-case characterization to be a caricature. Second, if you ask average Americans who are not highly partisan what they think of that caricature, they will laugh, and give responses that back up the statistics. This is seen in many surveys. Never mind that you can find individuals or pockets of individuals (and political niches) where the caricature is accepted - the vast majority know that it is not true.

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

Oh and Jenny, I don't think you're an asshole. Hopelessly misguided in some of your economic views and perceptions ( ), but not an asshole.

 

[Jenny_Jackson]

Oh and Jenny, I don't think you're an asshole. Hopelessly misguided in some of your economic views and perceptions ( ), but not an asshole.

Yes I am, Damnit!!

 

[Lucifer_Carroll]

Oh and Jenny, I don't think you're an asshole. Hopelessly misguided in some of your economic views and perceptions ( ), but not an asshole.

Pot, it's me kettle.

 

[impressive]

Pot, it's me kettle.

*poke*

 

[Lucifer_Carroll]

*poke*

*deep breath*

<turn>

TICKLE FIGHT!!!