Stung by allegations that hospitals regularly dump patients on skid row, the Hospital Assn. of Southern California is urging its members to revamp their policies for dealing with homeless patients.
The trade group, which represents about 95% of the county's hospitals, said medical centers should require written consent before transporting any homeless patients from the hospitals to ensure that they are going of their own free will.
The recommendation comes as the Los Angeles city attorney's office is investigating allegations that numerous hospitals across the county have regularly dumped patients on skid row, which is believed to have the largest concentration of homeless people in the Western United States.
Earlier this week, authorities released a videotape of what they said was the dumping of a 63-year-old patient -- dressed in a hospital gown and slippers -- from Kaiser Permanente's Bellflower facility on the streets of skid row. That elicited an apology from hospital officials but renewed calls by several members of the Los Angeles City Council for area hospitals to review their discharge practices.
Area hospitals have been under fire since late last year, when the Los Angeles Police Department named a handful of hospitals that officials believe had dropped off patients on skid row. Those hospitals -- including Kaiser Permanente West Los Angeles -- said they had no other choice when discharging homeless patients with nowhere else to go and who need the services of the missions and other providers concentrated there.
Four members of the council -- Eric Garcetti, Wendy Greuel, Jan Perry and Bill Rosendahl -- wrote a letter earlier this week to the chief executives of the 78 acute care hospitals in the county, asking them to stop the practice of releasing patients to the streets of skid row.
"You should no longer make the assumption or claim that there is a support network that has the capacity to deal with whoever arrives at the doors of the agencies that serve the indigent in downtown Los Angeles," the letter said. "It is imperative that the practice of 'dumping' people here in the interest of expeditiously moving them from your facilities stop immediately."
Jim Lott, executive vice president of the Hospital Assn., said he had also met with hospital executives about the issue.
