Those expousing the virtues of America's private healthcare model and the vices of a universal healthcare system should consider the fate of a penniless Los Angeles paraplegic. LAPD Officer Eric de la Cruz stated that the unnamed man said that he was dropped off by the hospital van on skid row because he had no where else to go and that the hospital staff told him that he could no longer stay at the medical center. Based on witnesses' writing down of the license plate number and a phone number on the van, LAPD detectives are questioning officials at Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center already under investigation for another dumping case. LAPD Det. Russ Long declared that this case was the worst that he had seen in his career. He elaborated, I can't think of anything colder than that; there was no mission around, no services; it's the worst area of skid row." Witnesses related to police that the man, wearing a dirtied hospital gown, propped himself up in the van's door, threw himself tumbling into the street, and pulled himself along with his belongings clinched in his teeth. Further, they disclosed that the female driver left him without a wheelchair or walker and was more concerned with the soiled seats and her facial farding. (Within the last two years, the Los Angeles Metropolitan
Medical Center, the Martin Luther King, Jr./Drew Medical Center, and the Kaiser's West Los Angeles Angeles hospital have also been accused of patient dumping by the LAPD.)
Cf. http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-dumping9feb09,0,7452706.story?coll=la-home-headlines.
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2 comments:
You're right. Under universal healthcare, the penniless fellow would probably have never had this happen to him. Under Universal Healthcare, he'd probably have been still waiting for his number to come up in the queue so that he could see his doc.
At least, he wouldn't have been put out on the street to fend for himself in his paralyzed state.
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