Officials on Monday launched an investigation into allegations that two county hospitals routinely leave discharged patients on skid row, and one county supervisor said the practice means there should be a fundamental reexamination of how hospitals deal with the homeless.
County supervisors have criticized what the Los Angeles Police Department has called the regular practice of suburban law enforcement agencies and some hospitals "dumping" homeless people, criminals and drug addicts on skid row.
But the supervisors were demanding answers after two hospitals they oversee, Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center and County-USC Medical Center, were cited as two that leave discharged patients downtown.
"These actions are unacceptable," Supervisor Mike Antonovich says in a motion he plans to introduce today.
Antonovich wants the Department of Public Social Services to work with the hospitals to evaluate patients before they are sent to outside facilities on skid row or elsewhere. Right now, officials at the hospitals perform that function.
Antonovich aide Tony Bell said the supervisor wants to examine moving some of the homeless and mental health services concentrated on skid row into the county's five public hospitals and surrounding areas across the region.
That would mark a major shift in county policy, which has focused the vast majority of services for the homeless, as well as drug and alcohol treatment programs, in a few square blocks of downtown Los Angeles. Critics say this concentration has helped make skid row a dumping ground for troubled people from across the county.
"Right now the argument is all the resources are down there," Bell said. "Wouldn't it make sense to bring more resources to the hospitals?"
The LAPD has accused three hospitals, King/Drew as well as Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center and Kaiser Permanente West Los Angeles, of sending discharged patients in taxis to skid row.
Representatives of the three hospitals said in interviews last week that the practice is in the best interests of the patients because skid row offers the best chance of their receiving the follow-up services -- as well as shelter -- that they need once they are discharged.
They also said the patients are sent to skid row only after they are healthy enough for discharge.
