Is making patient dumping illegal the answer?

February 25, 2007

No: “Hospitals will then let the homeless still in need of medical care just walk out, forgoing the free ride to skid row.”



Related posts:

  1. When patients extort hospitals
  2. A tragic patient dumping case
  3. Medical errors and patient responsibility
  4. Making hospitals quieter
  5. Dumping mental health patients
  6. Making money from providing inefficient, mediocre care
  7. Fired for not providing care to illegal immigrants


KevinMD.com on Facebook


  Follow on Twitter   Subscribe



{ 1 comment }

1 Anonymous February 26, 2007 at 10:46 pm

The idea that discharging a homeless person to the street is improper “dumping” is a result of the belief (too common) that a hosptial is completely responsible for a person admitted to their facility rather than only for their medical care. It is paternalistic and, to the degree it is bought into, antiliberty. If I choose to live on the street, or in a shack in the woods with no fascilities, it is neither my hosptital’s problem to remedy nor their right to deny it. If I will die of exposure and self-neglect without nursing home care, well, better men than me have chosen worse deaths–some for my freedom to live as I wish.

Comments on this entry are closed.

Previous post: A man cures his eyesight woes after an accident

Next post: Myths about colon cancer

Site Meter