State and local officials unveiled a plan Thursday that would clearly make the practice of dumping hospital patients on the street illegal.
The Los Angeles Times also reported that the L.A. Police Department told hospitals Wednesday that it would immediately arrest anyone seen dumping patients on Skid Row. The department is using the charge that dumping constitutes false imprisonment, a claim made by a lawyer attempting to prosecute Kaiser Permanente for dumping a homeless woman in 2006.
The lawyer describes the seemingly random false imprisonment charge as making “creative use” of the law, because he cannot nail the hospitals for something that is not specifically addressed by the law.
“Dumping” is when hospital personnel take homeless patients who are discharged from the hospital and leave them on the street, often taking them to Skid Row. It has been gaining public attention recently, especially in light of the city’s effort to “clean up” the area.
As shocking as this might be, it is not uncommon. The Times reported that authorities are currently investigating 55 alleged cases of dumping in Skid Row, and witnesses have reported additional instances beyond these.
Some examples of dumping are particularly striking.
One incident involved a paraplegic man wearing a colostomy bag who was dumped in a gutter in the area. The article says that when bystanders pleaded with the driver of the van not to leave the man, the driver responded by putting on makeup and perfume and driving away.
Though that case is a particularly startling one, the general idea of taking hospital patients, driving them out to Skid Row (probably one of the least appealing places in the greater L.A. area), and leaving them there is dangerous and disrespectful.
And the fact that there is not yet a law against it is only slightly less astonishing.
The practice is disturbing to begin with: Homeless people come to the hospital for treatment, they are ready to leave, and hospital personnel decide the best thing to do is take them to Skid Row.
The hospitals seem to think that since these people are homeless, Skid Row is where they belong and want to be taken when they’re released from the hospital.
Yet the issue isn’t even that hospitals should be taking homeless people wherever they want to go.
More importantly, why must hospitals take their homeless patients anywhere?
Understandably, hospitals don’t want to have homeless people hanging around the emergency room or other facilities after they have received the treatment they came for. But how does this translate into taking them to that area?
When dealing with homeless patients, hospitals should simply discharge them like any other patient. From there, patients can go wherever they have to.
It’s useless now to say the practice should never have begun (though it certainly should not have). But at the very, least dumping should be illegal, so hospitals can be prosecuted for dropping patients in the gutter.
Presently, there’s not much people can do by way of prosecuting hospitals for it or stopping it.
It’s ridiculous that as it currently stands, attorneys have to make “creative use” of the law to prosecute an act that is so clearly immoral.
If the practice is illegal, at least hospitals can be held accountable for it.
And eventually hospitals might discontinue the practice altogether.