The Los Angeles Police Department is investigating two more alleged cases of hospital patients being dumped on L.A.'s Skid Row. In one incident, police are checking surveillance video.LA-area private healthcare facilities have an ugly reputation for dumping homeless patients--that is, those with no medical insurance--onto the streets of its downtown-Skid Row area.
Security guards at the Union Rescue Mission saw video just after midnight on Sunday: A man, barefoot, face bandaged, who had just been dropped off -- not by an ambulance or a health care provider, but by a United Independent taxicab. He told the guards that he was in severe pain and could barely walk, and had come from the Veterans Administration Hospital.The reporter, Miriam Hernandez, also tells of another dumped patient--a mentally-ill man--who came from the civilian and privately-incorporated Western Medical Center in Anaheim. It's a looong way from Anaheim to downtown LA.
In an update, Hernandez states that
The one from the VA Hospital was returned to that hospital, but in the care of paramedics. The second man was cared for at the Union Rescue Mission for two days, then he walked off.Now, I'm not one to say the VA hospitals dispenses pristinely perfect health care--far from it; it is socialized medicine--but something about the VA part of this story smells. Can't quite put my finger on it.
If the first man had actually belonged at the VA, why would he be dumped on purpose at Skid Row? It's not as though he had any huge bill to pay.
It would be interesting to discover to which LA area VA hospital the man was returned, the West LA facility (near Santa Monica) or the one in Long Beach--or whether he was actually returned to a VA facility at all.
(Thanks to Don Surber and to Glenn Reynolds)
UPDATE: :::two Instalanches in two days---->>>always link to Don Surber:::
