Dumping on the Skids

L.A. Targets Patient Dumping | LAT | 12.22.05

The Los Angeles city attorney’s office is warning hospitals across Los Angeles today they are potential targets of an investigation into alleged dumping of patients on skid row.

City Atty. Rocky Delgadillo said Wednesday that the probe could result in criminal charges or lawsuits if hospitals dumped patients against their will.

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The city attorney’s letter to hospitals, obtained by The Times, queries them about possible violations of the federal Emergency Medical Transfer and Active Labor Act. That law requires hospitals to screen and stabilize all patients and penalizes them for releasing or transferring patients who are medically unstable.

The letter also cites a state law dealing with unfair business practices. That law has been used to prosecute alleged slumlords. The law allows a corporation to be sued for unscrupulous behavior. It also allows the government to ask a judge to issue an order forbidding a corporation to take certain actions. If the corporation violates the court order, it can be fined.

The letter, written by Jeffrey B. Isaacs, the chief of the city attorney’s criminal and special litigation branch, asks hospitals 10 questions about the types of patients they admit, discharge policies, procedures regarding the transfer or release of homeless patients, and whether the hospitals send patients to social service providers in downtown Los Angeles.

In addition, it asks whether the hospitals have identified any violations of the federal Emergency Medical Transfer act involving homeless patients.

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Estela Lopez, executive director of the Central City East Assn., a business advocacy group, also welcomed the news.

“Institutions need to be held responsible,” Lopez said. “How can you take a person who cannot fend for themselves and drop them anywhere, but much less the most dangerous few blocks in Los Angeles?

“Skid row is where people are sent to die or live the rest of their lives in a deathlike trance. And every single day it goes on, we are allowing it.”