Posted on 01/17/2008 3:03:27 PM PST by bshomoic
Paraplegic man dumped in LA gutter sues hospital
Thu Jan 17, 2008 4:35pm EST
By Jill Serjeant
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A mentally ill paraplegic man filed a lawsuit on Thursday against a hospital that dumped him in a gutter on Los Angeles' "Skid Row" -- a case that highlighted the plight of the city's vast homeless population.
Gabino Olvera, 42, sued the Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center for negligence and elder abuse after it discharged him in February 2007, took him across town in a van and left him in a soiled hospital gown without a wheelchair in the heart of the city's homeless area.
Witnesses who came to Olvera's aid said they saw him dragging himself on the ground with hospital papers and documents clenched in his teeth while the driver sat in her van and applied makeup before driving off.
The incident was captured by security cameras at a nearby homeless shelter.
Hernan Vera, a lawyer with Public Counsel, which helped bring the lawsuit on behalf on Olvera, called it "the most obscene and callous example of this practice that we have seen."
Hollywood Presbyterian did not return calls for comment on the lawsuit filed in Los Angeles Superior Court that seeks unspecified damages.
The Olvera case was one of about 50 reported incidents in the past 12 months of sick, confused and homeless patients being left by ambulances in the 50-block area of downtown Los Angeles thought to have the highest concentration of homeless people in the United States.
Estimates of the number of homeless in the United States ranges from 500,000 to more than a million.
In Los Angeles, an estimated 12,000 people, many of them mentally ill or addicted to drugs and alcohol, live and sleep on the streets of the area known as Skid Row.
Vera called Los Angeles "ground zero in the fight against unlawful dumping of homeless patients by hospitals."
Lawyers for Olvera said one of the goals of the lawsuit was to force local hospitals to change their practices.
In May, Kaiser Foundation Hospitals, the country's largest nonprofit health-care provider, settled a lawsuit involving the dumping of another patient by agreeing to find shelter places for all patients it discharges in Los Angeles.
Kaiser also agreed to improve discharge procedures and to contribute $500,000 to homeless services on Skid Row.
Hollywood Presbyterian said in a statement in May it would adopt similar protocols, but lawyers for Olvera said the hospital had failed to do so.
Oh, all the cities do it here....its no big secret.
Your buddy Hitler had a plan for the handicapped. It sounds as if you would favor it.
My question is how did he get from the gutter to the lawyer's office?
this is where the great human side of fr can be found. you’re too predictable. A latin-sounding name and you’re a scum and a freeloader and hospitals are right to dump you in the gutter. Are you people serious? the first 5 posts are positively sick. wonder where it goes from here. get back to us when it happens to your kids.
THIS GUY IS RIGHT
HERE’S the pot calling the kettle....whatever. All you people bitching about what should or should not be done and it boils down to NOBODY’S DOING A DAMNED THING !!!
Godwin's Law, pal. You lose.
That is one point I do agree with the critics. I suspect he came in his filthy homeless clothing and someone toss them out. If the hospital staff threw away his clothing, then they do have a responsibility to come up with something for him to wear.
As to when and where they became dirty, that is hard to know from the article. But if he “soiled” them after release, that is not the driver’s fault either.
Now I am a softy. So I probably carry him in to a shelter. I probably ask where his clothing are. But then again I have not spent years in hospitals dealing with mentally ill people Dims have made sure are not being treated.
Not that easy......
IF, in fact the man was/is a QUAD.....a simple "local shelter" would be extremely inappropriate, and unable to take care of this man.
There are charities and organizations if every city to help the indigent, the hospital could easily make arrangements with them for these sorts of patients.
Charities are rarely "set-up" to take such a person.
That being said...."Discharge Planners" should have found an appropriate site for this patient.
( Ain't gonna get into the other angles...here. As there are way, way, too many...)
FRegards,
Exactly.
Why the hell couldn’t they take him to a shelter?
I suspect this is another story that has been exagerated to help make the case for “national health insurance” better known as Hilery care. While I am sure something along the lines of the reported story happened, I doubt if it happened the way it has been depicted. The capper is when they mention the 60 or so other incidences that have occured, all of which could be prevented if we had Hilery Care in place. Doubt all you read in the MSM and demand proof plenty before you believe any of it.
What happened to the clothes the man wore into the hospital? Did he drag himself into the hospital naked? This sounds like a set up to me. Someone dropped the man at the hospital or called an ambulance, where are they?
CA spends $15 billion a year on illegals....you all know where the money is going....
http://www.flickr.com/photos/unxpektd/sets/72157603494217193/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mattlogelin/sets/72157594317304369/
Well it's probabaly the other way around. Lawyer went to the paraplegic.
Good point! He CHOSE to be homeless, he CHOSE to be a paraplegic, he CHOSE to be mentally ill and he CHOSE to be sick.
I think you have him properly pegged as some kind of clever welfare "scammer". We have absolutely no responsibility for him whatsoever. The slightest consideration for him would peg us as some kind of COMMUNIST HIPPY LEFTIST!!!!
I think we and other conservatives agree that JESUS wants him dumped into the gutter in the middle of a ghetto too!
Poor attempt at satire.
Look, it is very simple. Everyone but a sociopath agrees that it isn’t nice to dump a mentally ill paraplegic into a gutter with soiled pants.
The issue is, who is responsible for this person? You obviously want it to be the hospital’s responsibility. On what moral basis do you assign responsibility for this human being’s welfare to the hospital? There are people suffering on the streets of Skid Row every single day, in soiled pants, many handicapped and mentally. Should we (the gubment) save them all? Or just hospitals?
Sorry, but dumping a guy in the gutter?
You can’t be serious, if you think this is acceptable behavior, then you truly need to find the Grace of God.
he is serious.
the conservative movement is dead. no ideas, no enthusiasm, no heart, no nuthin'.
but, as you can see, if you want pious self-righteousness, high dudgeon, smarmy self-satisfaction and JESUS JESUS JESUS then, pal, FreeRepublic along with any number of self described "conservatives" will make you feel right at home.
Doesn’t apply because you do endorse the same reasoning Hitler used to justify dealing with the handicapped, pal.
Next time find a better reply to support your hatred.
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