Paraplegic man dumped in LA gutter sues hospital

[babylonsister]

Paraplegic man dumped in LA gutter sues hospital
Thu Jan 17, 2008 7:52pm EST


By Jill Serjeant

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A mentally ill paraplegic man filed a lawsuit on Thursday against a hospital that dumped him in a gutter on Los Angeles' "Skid Row" -- a case that highlighted the plight of the city's vast homeless population.

Gabino Olvera, 42, sued the Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center for negligence after it discharged him in February 2007, took him across town in a van and left him in a soiled hospital gown without a wheelchair in the heart of the city's homeless area.

Witnesses who came to Olvera's aid said they saw him dragging himself on the ground with hospital papers and documents clenched in his teeth while the driver sat in her van and applied makeup before driving off.

The incident was captured by security cameras at a nearby homeless shelter.

Hernan Vera, a lawyer with Public Counsel, which helped bring the lawsuit on behalf on Olvera, called it "the most obscene and callous example of this practice that we have seen."

The lawsuit was filed in Los Angeles Superior Court and seeks unspecified damages.

more...

http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSN1725024020080118?sp=true

[Ravy]

1. If he *was* homeless, he should be able to buy a nice house after this. nt

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

2. I was under the impression Mr. Olvera wasn't even homeless

they just dumped him there assuming he was,

[OneMoreDemocrat]

3. Incredible....

simply incredible.

[fenriswolf]

4. does it really matter if he was homeless or not

in regards to the above posts? still atrocious behavior.

[Warpy]

5. It's been five minutes

and Reuters is still just hanging there. I don't know what's wrong with their site, but I can rarely get it to load. I'd love to read the rest of the story.

Was the man really homeless? Had he come in by ambulance? Were there no family members listed? No address? Was he retarded, non verbal, unable to state his name and address? This whole thing is insane. They knew he couldn't walk. At least the vain driver could have gotten him into a shelter instead of just pushing him out of the back of her vehicle, splat into the street.

In any case, LA hospitals have gotten into trouble for patient dumping before now. I am astonished that the practice is still going on.

The lawsuit over this one is going to be a real beaut. If he'd been put into the street instead of onto a sidewalk, it was real endangerment of his life. He could end up being a very wealthy mentally ill paraplegic.

Here's a link to Yahoo for others who can't get Reuter's to load: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080117/us_nm/homeless_dumping_dc

On edit, part of the local story, " The complaint says that after Olvera was rushed to another hospital, staff immediately found medical problems that Hollywood Presbyterian overlooked.

"They rushed through the treatment for Mr. Olvera so quickly didn't diagnose or treat at all his existing urinary tract infection, for one," said Vera. "They didn't diagnose or treat his mental illness, even though he had been exhibiting signs."

The city attorney has filed a civil suit against the hospital. The district attorney is weighing criminal prosecution. Area hospitals at the time had agreed to protocols that halt patient dumping. Yet the practice persisted. "

http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/story?section=news/local&id=5898698

[babylonsister]

6. Here it is in its entirety:

It's been edited as the first time I saw it it was 3 pages long. :shrug:

By Jill Serjeant

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A mentally ill paraplegic man filed a lawsuit on Thursday against a hospital that dumped him in a gutter on Los Angeles' "Skid Row" -- a case that highlighted the plight of the city's vast homeless population.

Gabino Olvera, 42, sued the Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center for negligence after it discharged him in February 2007, took him across town in a van and left him in a soiled hospital gown without a wheelchair in the heart of the city's homeless area.

Witnesses who came to Olvera's aid said they saw him dragging himself on the ground with hospital papers and documents clenched in his teeth while the driver sat in her van and applied makeup before driving off.

The incident was captured by security cameras at a nearby homeless shelter.

Hernan Vera, a lawyer with Public Counsel, which helped bring the lawsuit on behalf on Olvera, called it "the most obscene and callous example of this practice that we have seen."

The lawsuit was filed in Los Angeles Superior Court and seeks unspecified damages.

Hollywood Presbyterian said in a statement it had thoroughly reviewed its patient discharge policies to ensure nothing of the sort ever happened again.

The hospital added it had held extensive talks with Olvera's lawyers and remained optimistic about reaching a satisfactory out-of-court settlement.

The Olvera case was one of about 50 reported incidents in the past 12 months of sick, confused and homeless patients being left by ambulances in the 50-block area of downtown Los Angeles thought to have the highest concentration of homeless people in the United States.

Estimates of the number of homeless in the United States ranges from 500,000 to more than a million.

In Los Angeles, an estimated 12,000 people, many of them mentally ill or addicted to drugs and alcohol, live and sleep on the streets of the area known as Skid Row.

Vera called Los Angeles "ground zero in the fight against unlawful dumping of homeless patients by hospitals."

Lawyers for Olvera said one of the goals of the lawsuit was to force local hospitals to change their practices.

In May, Kaiser Foundation Hospitals, the country's largest nonprofit health-care provider, settled a lawsuit involving the dumping of another patient by agreeing to find shelter places for all patients it discharges in Los Angeles.

Kaiser also agreed to improve discharge procedures and to contribute $500,000 to homeless services on Skid Row.

(Editing by Peter Cooney)