Nov. 20, 2006 - 12:07 PST

ROCK AND A HARD PLACE

An article in The Register-Guard of Eugene, Oregon on Friday Novxember 17, talks about things as they are -- not as they should be. By Andrew Glazer of The Associated Press. Quoted here in full :

HOSPITAL FACES CARGES IN ALLEGED DUMPING OF 63-YEAR-OLD PATIENT

LOS ANGELES -- "In an unprcedented crackdown on a practice experts say is shamefully common around the country, a major hospital chain was accused by prosecutors 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."

"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."

"No U.S. hospital has ever been prosecuted on criminal charges of patient-dumping, said President Bush's homelessness czar, Philip Mangano."

"Mangano, executive director of the U.S. Interagency Conncil on Homelessness, said patient dumping is a widespread practice."

"We need to hold hospitals accountable, but also work with them to resolve these issues," he said."

"Kaiser's Bellflower hospital, which discharged the woman, is among 10 Los Angles area hospitals under investigation on suspicion of discharging homeless patients onto the streets instead of into the custody of a relative or shelter."

"Dianna Bonta, vice president of public affairs for Kaiser Sothern California, said the legal action unfairly demonizes Kaiser."

"Bonta acknowledged that hospital officials had called a taxi to take the woman to Skid Row, but added that they had called ahead to a shelter there to let workers know she was coming."

"The woman found wandering on the street, Carol Ann Reyes, was taken in at the Union Rescue Mission. Its director, Andy Bales, said she continues to be cared for."

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It is very easy to read an article like this and light off like a skybound rocket, showers of sparks trailing behind.

But putting things of that ilk together, hospitals are under increasing loads from homeless patients, alien immigrants as well as our own home grown uninsured poor. The discharge of a woman with serious untreated health problems, does tend to raise one's hackles, without a doubt. Especially if one is demented.

Yet, perhaps later it will come out in court that Kaiser personnel did contact an agency on Skid Row. And in court perhaps it will be found out if the taxi driver was charged with guaranteeing the delivery of said woman to some person of responsibility at the agency in Skid Row.

However, the fact that patient dumping is an ongoing practise in our country, as attested by Mr. Mangano, executive director of the U.S. Ineragency council on Homelessness. So it is something to be intelligently handled. If a person is sick and needs medical care, it would seem that they should have it and have it at a level the rest of us would have.

Seems though that corporations and such have decided that health care is much too expensive now for those employed and to a hurtful extent for those retired on a fixed income who have had medical care yanked out from under them.

What's the answer to all this ? possibly Universal Health Care ? Thoes who have it don't seem to be too enthusiastic about it -- at least those who had private medical care previously.

It would appear the way things are going that medical care among other things will depend on just how rich a person is in spendable money. Perhaps just like the old days.

For the most part Joe Q. Public will remain between a ROCK AND A HARD PLACE . . . . . . . . .

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