Adding to this, there is no requirement that hospitals ensure that you are safe when they release you from their care so sometimes people who can’t pay for care and have dementia, uncontrolled or poorly controlled mental health issues, or are otherwise vulnerable get left at the nearest bus stop. It even makes the news sometimes because someone got dropped off only wearing a hospital gown at night in winter.
I can’t speak for every hospital since I’ve only worked at a few but this is rare. Some places might still be doing it, dumping people who can’t be placed or don’t have insurance, but EMTLA was put in place to combat that stuff and the lawsuit and probably fines would make this a bad move. We’ve kept people where I work for months because we can’t place them or psych won’t take them. At minimum they’re going to a nursing home.
Adding to this, there is no requirement that hospitals ensure that you are safe when they release you from their care so sometimes people who can’t pay for care and have dementia, uncontrolled or poorly controlled mental health issues, or are otherwise vulnerable get left at the nearest bus stop. It even makes the news sometimes because someone got dropped off only wearing a hospital gown at night in winter.
Edit to add link to an example: https://www.cnn.com/2018/01/11/health/baltimore-hospital-patient-video-bus-stop-trnd/index.html
I can’t speak for every hospital since I’ve only worked at a few but this is rare. Some places might still be doing it, dumping people who can’t be placed or don’t have insurance, but EMTLA was put in place to combat that stuff and the lawsuit and probably fines would make this a bad move. We’ve kept people where I work for months because we can’t place them or psych won’t take them. At minimum they’re going to a nursing home.
Love how the CEO pretends to care about what happens. The executives are the reason it does.
“Well, we never told them to make that the policy. We simply decreased wages and staffing enough that it was the natural conclusion to our decisions.”