In case you were short of a candidate for Sickest American Healthcare Practice (as if!) -
AP brightens your day:
In an unprecedented crackdown on a practice experts say is shamefully common around the country, prosecutors accused a major hospital chain Thursday of ridding itself of a homeless patient by dumping her on crime-plagued Skid Row.
A surveillance camera at a rescue mission recorded the demented 63-year-old woman wandering around the streets in a hospital gown and slippers last March.
Morning in America...
And which chain was that?
In announcing the criminal and civil charges, City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo said a Kaiser Permanente hospital put the woman in a taxi and sent her to the neighborhood even though she had serious, untreated health problems.
"Kaiser Foundation Hospitals, part of Kaiser Permanente, the largest HMO in the nation, will be held accountable for violating state law, its commitment to its patients, its obligations under the Hippocratic oath, and perhaps most importantly, principles of common decency," Delgadillo said.
But it's not only CA, and it's not only Kaiser:
Homeless and mental health advocates in a number of states _ including California, New York and Maine _ have long decried and fought to stop the discharge of homeless patients into urban communities.
...Kaiser's Bellflower hospital, which discharged the woman, is among 10 Los Angeles-area hospitals under investigation on suspicion of discharging homeless patients onto the streets instead of into the custody of a relative or shelter.
Now, as
I said yesterday, I think the prospect for Federal single payer - the gold standard - is zero.
But - patient-dumping? How much extra on healthcare spending would it take to stop it? I can't believe it's not fixable - and any success in fixing anything in the healthcare system is a stepping stone to fixing something else.
I'm not holding my breath, though.