Paraplegic allegedly 'dumped' on L.A.'s skid row

[Moloch]

A paraplegic man wearing a soiled hospital gown and a broken colostomy bag was found crawling in a gutter in skid row in Los Angeles on Thursday after allegedly being dumped in the street by a Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center van, police said.

The incident, witnessed by more than two dozen people, was described by police as a particularly outrageous case of "homeless dumping" that has plagued the downtown area.

"I can't think of anything colder than that," said LAPD Det. Russ Long, who called the case the most egregious of its kind that he has seen in his career. "There was no mission around, no services. It's the worst area of skid row."

Los Angeles Police Department detectives said they connected the van to Hollywood Presbyterian after witnesses wrote down a phone number on the van and took down its license-plate number.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-dumping9feb09,0,7452706.story?coll=la-home-headlines

[KingFlorez]

1. What a terrible thing to do

I've heard other stories about hospitals doing this.

[Erika]

5. W will probably offer a tax credit for the dumping

for iniative and an effort to save $.

[lonestarnot]

2. Damn! Heartless fuckers!

Some criminal charges better be getting drafted!

[Dammit Ann]

3. i hope they all are stricken with bankruptcy and homelessness...

and illness. unbelievable. appalled doesn't come close to my feelings at reading this.

[Erika]

4. This is Bush's America

Dump them and forget them.

[struggle4progress]

6. Police Probe Alleged Homeless Dumping

By MICHAEL R. BLOOD
LOS ANGELES Feb 9, 2007 (AP)

... Witnesses, all homeless people, began shouting, "Where is his wheelchair? Where is his walker?" Detective Russ Long said Friday. They told officers the driver responded that the man defecated in the van and had to be removed.

"If there is an explanation it just eludes me at this point," Long said ...

Witnesses told police a van from Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center pulled up to a tiny park in the grimy area near downtown at 10:45 a.m. Thursday, a side door opened and a man, dressed in a green hospital gown and pants, began struggling to get out. The driver looked on.

"His pants fell around his ankles. He fell onto the curb with his legs dangling onto the street," Long said. "He reached down and grabbed his pants, pulled his legs onto the sidewalk. Witnesses said the van would have run over his legs if he hadn't have done that." ...

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=2864217

[orleans]

7. more of bush's compassionate conservatives...

Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center
"one world. one hospital. one patient at a time."

HAHAHAHAHA!

Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center
1300 North Vermont Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90027

Phone: [phone]
E-mail: [e-mail]

[struggle4progress]

8. Facility Becomes the First Korean-Owned Hospital in the United States (2005)

CHA Medical Group Acquires Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center; Facility Becomes the First Korean-Owned Hospital in the United States
Business Wire, Jan 3, 2005

HOLLYWOOD, Calif. -- CHA Medical Group today announced that it has signed a definitive purchase agreement to purchase Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center from a subsidiary of Tenet Healthcare Corporation (NYSE:THC). The transaction officially closed on December 31, 2004.

The addition of Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center to the CHA Medical Group family increases to five the number of hospitals owned and operated by the group. The CHA Medical Group, under .. Kwang Yul Cha, M.D., already owns and operates four acute care hospitals with approximately 2,000 beds, two specialty clinics for Oriental medicine, a medical university and a cell and gene therapy research institute, all in Korea. In addition, Dr. Cha owns and operates two infertility medical centers in the United States and Korea, including the CHA Fertility <byCenter in Los Angeles ...

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0EIN/is_2005_Jan_3/ai_n8682363

I don't know for sure, but I wonder if "CHA Medical Group" is a Moonie operation. Here's an example of the kind of work Dr. Cha does:

J Reprod Med. 2001 Sep;46(9):781-7.

Does prayer influence the success of in vitro fertilization-embryo transfer? Report of a masked, randomized trial.

Cha KY, Wirth DP.

Cha Hospital, Seoul, South Korea.

OBJECTIVE: To assess the potential effect of intercessory prayer (IP) on pregnancy rates in women being treated with in vitro fertilization-embryo transfer (IVF-ET) ... http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=11584476

The Columbia University 'Miracle' Study: Flawed and Fraud

The much-hyped Columbia University prayer study was flawed and suspicious from the start but now has been fatally tainted with fraud. The first-named author doesn't respond to inquiries. The "lead" author said he didn't learn of the study until months after it was completed. And now the mysterious third author, indicted by a federal grand jury, has pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit fraud. All his previous studies must now be questioned.

Bruce Flamm

... On October 2, 2001, the New York Times reported that researchers at prestigious Columbia University Medical Center in New York had discovered something quite extraordinary (1). Using virtually foolproof scientific methods the researchers had demonstrated that infertile women who were prayed for by Christian prayer groups became pregnant twice as often as those who did not have people praying for them. The study was published in the Journal of Reproductive Medicine (2). Even the researchers were shocked. The study's results could only be described as miraculous. This was welcome and wonderful news for a shaken nation ...

The study's three authors were Kwang Cha, Rogerio Lobo, and Daniel Wirth. Kwang Yul Cha, M.D., was the director of the Cha Columbia Infertility Medical Center at the time of the "miracle" study but apparently severed his relationship with Columbia soon after the study was published. A page on Columbia's Web site, which has since been removed, described Cha as an "internationally renowned clinician and researcher." Cha is a graduate of the Yonsei Medical School in Seoul, South Korea. Professor Rogerio A. Lobo, M.D., recently stepped down as chairman of the department of obstetrics and gynecology at Columbia University. When the study results were announced, Dr. Lobo told the New York Times that the idea for the study came from Dr. Cha; however, the Columbia news release claimed that Dr. Lobo led the study. For two years both Dr. Cha and Dr. Lobo have refused to return my phone calls and e-mails asking questions about the study. The study's third author, Daniel Wirth, who will be described below, has no known connection with Columbia University other than his participation in the study ...

In addition, in December 2001, Columbia University Vice President Thomas Q. Morris, a physician, informed the DHHS that Dr. Lobo first learned of the study from Dr. Cha six to twelve months after the study was completed and that Lobo primarily provided editorial review and assistance with publication (8). This seems inconsistent with Lobo being listed as one of the study's authors. This also conflicts with the fact that Lobo was identified by both The New York Times and ABC News as the report's lead author. Lobo was also identified as the report's lead author in a news release posted for two years on the Columbia University Web site. Interestingly, the press release has recently been removed from the Columbia site. If the report's lead author did not conduct the international prayer study, who did? ...

http://www.csicop.org/si/2004-09/miracle-study.html

[watrwefitinfor]

9. Why isn't this getting to the Greatest Page?

K & R.

Wat

[Ken Burch]

10. I've sent an email to the Presbyterian Church, U.S.A. about this

If they have any influence on what occurs at Hollywood Presbyterian, they should be deeply embarassed and ashamed that this has happened.

[laylah]

12. I just sent one, also, Ken n/t

[Ken Burch]

14. Thanks.

n/t.

[struggle4progress]

18. The Presbyterians don't own the facility: I think CHA does

[Ken Burch]

28. I just got confirmation of this from the church.

n/t.

[xxqqqzme]

30. Then the church should be demanding

that the name be changed.

[CountAllVotes]

21. embarrassed? That lets them off easy!

They should be charged with attempted murder.

DAMN THEM! :argh:

:kick:

[Hekate]

11. This is like something from the Dark Ages. Shameful beyond words

Since the Presbyterian Church sold the hospital in 2005, they should probably insist their name be removed from everything to do with it. It besmirches them to be associated with this kind of thing.

Worse, it shames all of us.

Hekate

[ChairmanAgnostic]

16. more aspects of the US are like the Dark Ages. Get used to it.

because you ain't seen nuthin yet. WE still have two more years of Bush to contend with.

Still, what a sick story.

[Hekate]

23. I've been saying it for several years now. I refuse to get used to it though. nt

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

13. This sounds like something that might happen in a third world country

not in the U.S. I once read that in Calcutta, poor people who died all alone like dogs in the street would sometimes get run over and become road kill, getting run over repeatedly. Even that is probably no longer true. Are our inner cities becoming worse than third world countries? The story says the van nearly ran over the man as he lay on the street and he had to move out of the way. How could these kinds of cruel things happen in America, when there's so much wealth all around?

[smirkymonkey]

29. Didn't you hear?

We are a third-world country. It's official.

Courtesy of the Republican Party.

[fasttense]

15. This is what happens when you run hospitals for profit.

Deregulation also deregulated our hospitals and allowed corporations to run them for fun and profit. This is what happens to medicine when you blindly privatize them. Free trade anyone?

[Peace Patriot]

17. Yeah, you nailed it. This is a very deep problem. This incident sums it up.

But the problem is huge. Privatization of EVERYTHING--from what should be help and compassion (medicine) to what should be democracy (transparent vote counting), all buggered beyond belief by the Corporate Rulers--with vastly powerful medieval institutions that arose out of our democracy, using our productive workers, our country's resources, and our cooperative and progressive society, to gather wealth and power, and now, like great cancerous growths, are smothering the life out of the very society that bred them.

Solutions:

1. TRANSPARENT elections.
2. Grass roots organization.
3. Think big.

[kikiek]

25. You are so right. Same with assisted livings and nursing homes. There should not

be for profit medical care because when it comes down to it we know what happens The shareholders get an extra buck at the cost of patient care.

[saigon68]

19. This is the amerika we are fighting for in Iraq-Nam

Land of the RICH the WELL CONNECTED The PRIVILEGED

It's enough to make one vomit

Crawling on elbows in the gutter in a soiled hospital gown, with a broken colostomy bag.

The face of amerika to come.

The guy won't be drinking champagne in a clorox community tonight

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=clorox+community

[Vinca]

20. This is one of the most upsetting articles I've ever read.

Getting beyond the whole health care issue, how does a human being - the driver and whoever else might have been in the van - dump a helpless person on the street? How does a hospital which, by its name, purports to have a religious connection do this? What kind of people are these?

[kikiek]

22. How Christian of them.

[mcscajun]

24. Among Other Punishments, they should have their accreditation pulled. Contact...

http://www.jointcommission.org

This is reprehensible, and I can't think of anything too horrible to happen to those directly involved.

[Bigmack]

26. When do we find out he's a vet? nt

nt

[Oak2004]

27. I can believe this

Fletcher Allen Health Care, Burlington VT, attempted to have me arrested last year because I had two bad legs and a bad arm in a sling, and could not use my manual wheelchair to leave under my own power when discharged from the ER.

I had arrived at the ER via ambulance, btw, by orders of a physical therapist who saw that A) I was not mobile and concluded I needed to be in subacute rehab while waiting for ortho surgery B) did not think it was safe for me to travel any other way but ambulance. OTOH, the hospital saw "disabled Medicaid patient", and insisted I use my one arm to leave (if you use only one arm to propel a manual wheelchair you go around in circles). When I pointed out that I could not, they called the police.

[Eugene]

31. AP: L.A. Hospital Accused of Hindering Probe

L.A. Hospital Accused of Hindering Probe

L.A. Hospital Accused of Hindering Probe

By DAISY NGUYEN
The Associated Press
Thursday, February 15, 2007; 5:29 AM

LOS ANGELES -- A hospital under investigation for dropping off a paraplegic man on
Skid Row last week has refused to release his medical records, the city attorney said.

City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo on Wednesday accused Hollywood Presbyterian Medical
Center of stonewalling the probe. Hospital officials disputed the accusation.

-snip-

Delgadillo said hospital attorneys won't release the man's medical records even though
he signed a consent form authorizing investigators to review them.

The attorneys questioned the authenticity of the signature and expressed concerns
about the man's privacy, Delgadillo said.

-snip-

Full article: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/15/AR2007021500228.html

[Vinca]

32. I hope the poor man has "demon liberal trial lawyers" lining up

to represent him against this bunch. They deserve to be sued for the last aspirin in their damn hospital.