Member-only story
Patient Dumping
The sorry state of healthcare in the US
It’s 6:30am, and I am walking my dog. The winds are howling at 50mph, it’s raining, and the temperature is 36 degrees F. Making his way towards me is an elderly man, leaning on his walker. His thin trousers are no protection from the cold and rain. His shoes are already sopping wet. He stops in the middle of the street, and leans on his walker to rest.
He sees me, and asks, “How far is it to the bus stop?” “Three more blocks,” I answer. I don’t have a car, so I can’t give him a ride to the bus stop, but I can offer to walk with him those three blocks. He declines. He says he will be okay.
“I just got out of the hospital,” he tells me. “They told me that I could go down the hill to a bus stop, or I could walk to another stop without a hill. I was afraid that I would fall on the hill, so I decided to try to get to the other stop.”
I live one block from the hospital, and I see patients just released from hospital stays struggling to reach the bus stops almost daily. Some don’t have shoes, and are shuffling along the street in disposable hospital slippers. Some are dressed in a hospital gown and disposable hospital pants. Some are making their way down the street on crutches, limbs bandaged.
