This just in: L.A. to make patient-dumping illegal

Hospitals that drop off patients on the streets of Los Angeles could face fines of up to $25,000 and three years of probation under an ordinance passed this afternoon by the Los Angeles City Council.  Until now, prosecutors said that the most they could do in many cases was file civil suits against hospitals and other healthcare facilities that have been found to leave patients, often homeless and destitute, on skid row and at other locations. The big change under the new law is that patient-dumping is now a criminal misdemeanor, said the Times' Cara Mia DiMassa, who is working on a full story.

The ordinance, which will need a second vote before becoming official, was proposed in the wake of numerous high-profile cases of hospitals dropping off homeless and mentally ill patients on skid row. Los Angeles prosecutors have looked into 50 dumping cases since 2005.
 
The most recent case happened earlier this month when a Costa Mesa hospital allegedly drove a mentally ill patient more than 40 miles to downtown Los Angeles, where he was left near the Union Rescue Mission.

-- Jesus Sanchez

Comments

[John]

If our mayor says there are no illegal aliens in the city, how could there be patients illegally placed in the city?

[janet]

Of course it's inhuman to dump patients in the street, and leaving one guy in his hospital gown, unable to walk, in front of the Union rescue Mission which had refused to take hm for being too full, was the impetus for this. But I understand the hospitals' views, too: they can't become a homeless shelter and the county hasn't provided transitional housing for these homeless, and the private shelters refuse new transients when they reach their legal limit.

This basically gave Jan Perry and Bill Rosendahl an excuse to get on their high horse and attack hospitals, Rosendahl in that whiny voice which fails to sound authoritative and comes off as annoying; but the City Attorney never addressed just what IS the protocol hospitals are supposed to follow when a homeless person has nowhere to go.

The County hasn't done its job dealing with these people, yet claims its budget is just fine and dandy? At least the City Council and Mayor are being honest about their city's budget crisis. And look at the long-too-overcrowded jail system, which can't provide humane treatment for the half of inmates who are addicts or mentally ill (and won't aggressively ID the 1/3 who are illegal and should be deported to make room for better treatment for the rest).

It's criminal the way the media has hounded the city and Mayor (not that they don't deserve scrutiny, especially the way Daily News is reporting that salaries and recent raises demanded by unions make up some 3/4 the whole budget), but NOT the County, with its overpaid Board of Supervisors and Financial Chief Fujioka -- whose own staff just got a raise.

Their $22 Billion budget is 3X that of the city, but they get NO scrutiny or condemnation for their failures. It's unfair to take this all out on hospitals, so that privately insured patients will have to make up for their housing homeless on top of our paying to subsidize ALL the illegals who make up most of the County Hospital patients. LaBonge voted no to call attention to this failing, and for once, he's right to stand alone.