Homeless patient dumping at LA's 'Skid Row' to end
11:40AM
Wednesday May 16, 2007
By Jill Serjeant
LOS ANGELES - A paraplegic man with a broken colostomy bag was found crawling in the gutter. An elderly woman, wearing only a hospital gown and slippers, was dumped on the street by a taxi called by the hospital.
For years, few people took seriously reports that Los Angeles hospitals were taking sick, confused and homeless patients by ambulance to the city's notorious "Skid Row" and leaving them there.
Today, Los Angeles city officials and a major hospital group announced a deal they hoped marks the beginning of the end to the dumping of vulnerable people in an area thought to have the highest concentration of homeless in the country.
...At least three other cases of patient dumping have been captured on police video in the past year as part of a wider effort to clean up Skid Row that has resulted in a 45 per cent drop in crime in the past year.
"It is a terrible reflection on us as a society when we abandon these vulnerable people without an adequate safety net," said city councilwoman Jan Perry.
