Video shows indigent hospital patient being left on LA's Skid Row [View All]

[Kadie]

Video shows indigent hospital patient being left on LA's Skid Row
By GREG RISLING, Associated Press Writer


Last Updated: March 23, 2006, 04:55:28 PM PST


LOS ANGELES (AP) - A videotape of an elderly woman wandering Skid Row in a hospital gown and slippers is being examined by authorities investigating the practice of hospitals and police agencies dumping homeless people downtown.

Carol Ann Reyes, 63, of Gardena was taken from a Kaiser Permanente hospital in Bellflower on Monday to Skid Row, authorities said. Videotape recorded Monday by a surveillance camera outside the Union Rescue Mission showed a taxi cab drive out of camera view. Moments later, Reyes appeared from the direction of the cab.

Reyes wandered the street for about three minutes before a mission staff member brought her inside.

The city attorney's office is investigating.

"The tapes have been turned over to us," city attorney's spokesman Frank Mateljan said Thursday. "We have been looking into homeless dumping for some time and this (tape) gives us another example of what has been going on."

For several months, city officials have been looking into alleged dumping of homeless people in Skid Row, a ramshackle area of downtown. Several hospitals have acknowledged that they put some discharged indigent patients with nowhere else to go into taxicabs headed to Skid Row because the area offers the best chance for getting services and shelter.

more...
http://www.modbee.com/state_wire/story/11966783p-12730218c.html


:cry: