Hospitals Struggling With Discharging Homeless Patients
Hospitals are required to have a discharge policy for all patients, but that can be easier said than done for health professionals dealing with people who have no place to live and may have mental illnesses and other complicated problems. There are times when these neediest patients are finding themselves dumped at homeless shelters without any warning.
Sacramento Bee:
Are Hospitals 'Dumping' Homeless Patients On Shelters, Service Agencies In Sacramento?
Arlan Lewis, nearly 78 years old and hobbled by arthritis in his right hip, remembers feeling disoriented when a taxi dropped him in front of Sacramento’s Union Gospel Mission one afternoon last month. He had just been discharged from Woodland Memorial Hospital, about 20 miles away, where he had spent more than a week undergoing psychiatric evaluations after sheriff’s deputies picked him up in Carmichael as a potential danger to himself or others. Lewis, a former cook who recently had become homeless after his Social Security check no longer covered his rent, had not asked to be taken to the mission. Standing in an unfamiliar place where dozens of grizzled men were sprawled along the sidewalk waiting for one of the agency’s 60 shelter beds, he approached swing shift supervisor Bobby Chatman. (Hubert, 1/8)