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Roundup: Homeless Dumping Settlement

By Eric Richardson
Published: Friday, April 10, 2009, at 01:59PM
Union Rescue Mission_A Ed Fuentes

Surveillance cameras on the Union Rescue Mission were instrumental in the City Attorney's case against College Hospital.

DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES — On Wednesday, the City Attorney's office announced a settlement in its case against College Hospital, which it charged with dumping more than 150 mentally ill individuals on Skid Row over the last two years. The hospital will pay $1.6 million and is forbidden from releasing patients into the area.

Here's a roundup of media coverage of the press conference and settlement.

Union Rescue Mission

Los Angeles Times

Doctors at College Hospital diagnosed Steven Davis as suffering from schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and schizoaffective disorder. Doctors at the Costa Mesa mental institution prescribed him numerous drugs to deal with paranoid delusions that had led to an earlier suicide attempt.

But that didn't stop the hospital from hauling Davis into a van and driving him more than 40 miles north to downtown L.A., where they dropped him off outside the Union Rescue Mission. When mission officials complained to the hospital, the van returned and drove Davis a few miles south to another shelter. Davis wandered away without ever entering.

(Editorial)

[Stephen] Davis' experience prompted a yearlong investigation by the city attorney's office, which culminated Wednesday in a court order that should deter hospitals from tossing others like him onto the streets. Just as important, the order could help hospitals manage the challenges that homeless patients with mental illnesses present.

More than three years into L.A.'s crackdown on patient dumping downtown, officials have reached settlements with four hospitals and collected millions in payments.

But although enforcement has been aggressive, much less has been done to address the problem at the heart of the issue: If patients can't be left on skid row, where should they go?

CBS' 60 Minutes

The first rule in medicine is: do no harm. But doing harm is precisely what some Los Angeles hospitals are being accused of when it comes to patients who happen to be homeless.

As CNN's Anderson Cooper reports, the claim is that hospitals don’t like dealing with homeless patients, who are often uninsured and sometimes unpleasant to treat. So they literally dump them on the streets of Skid Row, even if the patients come from other places in Los Angeles, and are in no condition to fend for themselves.

KPCC

L.A. City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo says College Hospital Costa Mesa may have dumped as many as 150 psychiatric patients on Skid Row in the last couple of years. His office has reached a settlement with the hospital. KPCC's Brian Watt reports.

Wall Street Journal Health Blog

The question now is what to do with these patients. As we noted last year when the city passed an ordinance barring homeless dumping, one complaint from hospitals was that some patients simply refuse to leave. Several hospitals did admit their own failings and were revising their discharge procedures, however.

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Conversation

Guest 1

Oscar on April 13, 2009, at 07:30AM – #1

There was a van last Monday that came from the valley and dumped a whole bunch of mentally ill people on Spring between 2nd. and 7th. ... What? Oh no, those are yappy hipsters, nevermind... ... along came the farmer's market...


Guest 2

Jonathan on April 13, 2009, at 02:41PM – #2

if theres nowhere safe for these homeless people to go...then what do they expect hospitals to do with them? ive worked with homeless patients before, from my epxerience, most really are rude and disrespectful to the staff, and most definitely dont need to be in the hospital where their care is costing thousands of dollars a day, and they are staying weeks, even months. most take advantage of the services they are given at the hospital, and lie about their condition in order to not be forcefully discharged. these articles make it sound like the hospitals are so evil, and thats just not the case. a hospital is not a hotel, and often, the homeless treat it as such. they get as much food as they want, clean clothes, plenty of attention, and they dont pay a dime, nor are they ever expected to.
so whats the suggestion? fill up the hospitals with homeless people? a hospital IS a business u know, and they have to do their best to make money too. if these shelters dont take them in, or complain when they get dropped off there, then what the hell are the hospitals supposed to do?


Guest 3

Bert Green on April 13, 2009, at 04:29PM – #3

"then what the hell are the hospitals supposed to do?"

Are you defending dumping? If a hospital has no place to put someone they could just let them out the front door. But the problem with that, and the reason why they dump downtown, is that their neighbors would object.

It's just so much easier to drive them to an abandoned area at night and let them out. And that is exactly what they did until they got caught. No, hospitals are not evil. But dumping is.


Guest 2

Jonathan on April 13, 2009, at 06:21PM – #4

sigh....

clearly, im not defending dumping.. you must not know much about hospital politics bert. hospitals dont just call security and have them forcibly escort the patients to the front door when they are done with their care and ready to be discharged. the patients MUST have somewhere to go. thats why there are social workers that hospitals employ to make sure people have somewhere to go. the same situation occurs when an elderly person with no family is being discharged, and doesnt have the ability to take care of themselves. they dont dump these people out on skid row, they find a skilled nursing facility who will take them in. unfortunately the homeless often do not have any kind of insurance, and cannot be placed in one of these SNF's. which brings me to my point. there is nowhere to take these people. if u read this article, it says that the shelters are complaining about taking in homeless people from the hospitals, and others are just ignoring them. if the shelters wont take them in, who will? this is a huge problem.

you have people like Bert Green who are only worried about WHERE the pt's get dumped, and are not even upset that there are homeless with nowhere to go once theyve been injured or gotten sick....so u blame the evil hospitals because they dont want to go bankrupt! (which a large % of hospitals ARE, or are about to be in this country..) health care professionals have a high sense of ethics, and are letting patients stay in the hospital when they have no reason to be in the hospital. i urge u Bert to find out how much money it costs to house one person in the hospital for one day, on average. that money could go to a shelter program that would house hundreds of homeless, solving both parties problems...

its not about neighbors objecting to homeless being discharged in their neighborhood, thats just the minute % of cases that u see on TV and in the newspaper. the much larger problem is that they just cant be discharged ANYWHERE.


Guest 3

Bert Green on April 13, 2009, at 11:28PM – #5

My response was not meant to express no concern for the patients themselves, sorry if I gave that impression. No, I don't know much about hospital politics, and I doubt I'm alone in that among the general population.

Like I said, hospitals are not evil. But having no solution is not the same as solving a problem by dumping patients (and yes, I know you agree with that).

I get your concern, and I share it. I assumed we were discussing the above story.



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