Three Los Angeles hospitals regularly put discharged patients with nowhere to go into taxicabs bound for skid row, hospital officials acknowledged this week.
Officials at Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center, Kaiser Permanente West Los Angeles and Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center said the practice is necessary because skid row is the only place in Southern California with a concentration of social services for the patients, including homeless shelters and drug and alcohol programs.
Los Angeles Police Department officials agreed that the hospitals have few other options. But they said the practice worsens the already grim conditions on skid row. They also disputed the hospitals' contention that the patients taken to skid row are always ready for release.
The hospitals are the first agencies to acknowledge a practice of routinely delivering their wards to skid row. They did so after being named in a report by the LAPD that accused the three hospitals and several suburban law enforcement agencies of leaving homeless people and criminals in downtown. The suburban police departments have denied the accusation.
The new disclosures come at a time of heightened public debate about the practice of "dumping" indigent people in the heart of downtown Los Angeles. Earlier this week, city and state officials pledged a new attack on the area's persistent problems, beginning with a crackdown on rampant drug dealing, which police say generates roughly one-fifth of the city's drug arrests.
Workers at skid row social service agencies this week said several other hospitals discharge patients in the area. Those reports could not be confirmed.
Representatives of the three hospitals insisted that the practice is in the best interests of the patients because skid row offers their best chance of receiving the follow-up services -- as well as shelter -- that they need once they are discharged. They also stressed that the patients are sent to skid row only after they are healthy enough for discharge.
"One of the challenges is that there are very few places that will take patients coming out of the hospital, even when they are medically cleared," said Mehera Christian, director of public affairs for Kaiser Permanente Metro Los Angeles, whose hospital on Cadillac Avenue is eight miles west of downtown. "There are just a scarce number of places in the community to assist our homeless."
