Posted on 02/09/2007 4:50:13 PM PST by wagglebee
The problem is only going to be compounded as time goes on; We are seeing growing numbers of homeless and people without insurance. Add a disability, and there are no easy answers.
There are no easy answers, I agree. There never have been when it comes to taking care of people like this man. I have been caretaker for a 93 year old lady plus my own Mother through various illnesses, surgeries, etc. It's not easy.
The problem with our mindset and thinking today is that we expect people to either a) fend for themselves somehow or b) be able to pay for someone to take care of them, never mind that they aren't able to EARN money to do so.
Most conservatives don't want government involvement in our lives and don't think it's the government's job to provide social services, and I agree. It is our job as individuals and citizens to take care of each other. First of all to family, and then to those who don't have families or whose families don't step up to the plate.
But that's not a very comfortable nor easy thing to do. After all, care taking consumes your own life. And that's why we're all too willing to allow the government to do it, or to dump someone on the street when there's no governmental resources available for them. It's a shameful, selfish mindset we've fallen into.
You will find that most of the people on the street want to be on the street. They refuse to go to shelters which are numerous. They fight tooth and nail having to go to a structured environment.
You would bring them to your home? You'd better get going. I bet they drop about 50 patients a day down there. This is not a one-shot deal. And it will take more than platitudes to fix it. Even Jesus said, don't forget -- "The poor will always be with us."
Why is this guy homeless? Has he trained himself for any sort of job to provide for his own needs? Is he taking care of his health at all on his own? Was he, when he provided for himself? Is he that guy I heard on the radio who said, "When I worked, I just never had any time to read books. I decided to be homeless so I could have a better quality of life."
I worked a long time at a neighborhood food bank. Sad stories, yes, but most of the people were actively working to better themselves. Many homeless people have chosen a life of drugs and alcohol; this is not a great way to provide for your own needs, and it makes your life someone else's problem.
Compassion, yes, it is truly earned in this. That the state should fix it, I don't believe that is true. Am I my brothers' keeper? Yes, I believe that is true. Jesus said, however, "Pick up your mat and walk."
It is not black and white.
He would then get three meals a day and medical care in a prison.
It wasn't exactly abandoned; it was bought-out.
"... not the proper way to discharge a patient."
Talk about an understated sense of humor! lol
Posts like yours sort of amuse me. Fifty patients a day? Hardly. It might happen on a regular basis of sorts, but hardly fifty a day and hardly all incapable of fending for themselves like this paraplegic.
Yes, Jesus told the disciples, "The poor will always be with us," but the context was that He was still with them in physical form and there would plenty of time after He went back to heaven for them to care for the poor. That is now.
You ask a lot of questions about the guy that none of us have answers to, including you. He may or may not be like the guy you know who would rather read books than read. None of us know that. We do know that he was dumped onto the streets directly from the hospital with a hospital gown and a colostomy bag and without any ability to move from the waste down. There's NO excuse for that. Absolutely none.
And, in response to your second quote from Jesus, again one that you have taken out of context, Jesus told the man to pick up his mat and walk AFTER he had healed him. Did ya get that? AFTER he had given the man the tools he needed to be ABLE to pick up his mat and walk, not before. There's a lesson in that for us as well.
"He may or may not be like the guy you know who would rather read books than read work."
"...and without any ability to move from the waste waist down."
The hospitals around here have social workers on staff who handle the discharge arrangements. They line up beds at nursing homes, and help with insurance forms. They interview the patients and make sure they have some type of assistance with their recovery. They make sure the patient gets any necessary physical therapy to help with their recovery. The ones with the best insurance or other methods of paying for care get set up in the best facilities. But the patients with the least do not get dumped in a gutter, to crawl along wearing a soiled hospital gown and ripped colonoscopy bag leaking liquified feces all over their already filthy bodies. That would never pass for Five Star Treatment around here.
No, I agree, it was a terrible thing to do to a fellow human being. It just started me thinking, tho -- where do you discharge someone who reports himself as homeless? I suspect that the transport van that 'delivered' this patient was a sub-contractor, and hopefully that person no longer has a job.
Still, it is a complex problem.
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