CALIFORNIA HOSPITALS NOW TO BE REQUIRED TO PROVIDE HOMES FOR THE HOMELESS

If you are homeless, just get yourself admitted to a hospital and you will be right from then on! Yet more incentive for hospitals to take in the poor, I guess

The incident last December stuck in Tim Brown's craw. Barton Memorial Hospital in South Lake Tahoe sent a homeless woman on a 101-mile taxi ride, dropping her off outside Sacramento's Loaves & Fishes. Brown, executive director of the homeless service organization, found that decision unacceptable. He called the hospital but was dissatisfied with their response.

The ensuing publicity caught the attention of Assemblyman Dave Jones, D-Sacramento. "It almost seemed like it was a policy of some of the surrounding counties to send people to Sacramento to services, and they're doing that because they're not providing the services in their own counties and that's just not right," he said. Four months later, Jones' proposed bill to address the issue is beginning to make its way through the Legislature. The bill - AB 2745 - would require hospitals to develop discharge procedures specifically for homeless patients and to submit the plans to their county board of supervisors. The idea of the bill, Jones said, is to discourage the "dumping" of homeless people across county lines, and to encourage counties to provide services for their own homeless residents.

Another bill, proposed by state Sen. Gil Cedillo, D-Los Angeles, would slap a maximum $10,000 fine on any agency that transports a homeless person to the streets near a homeless service provider without that person's permission and without confirming that the service provider has space available. The bill is one of nine Cedillo is proposing to address homelessness in the state, especially in the Skid Row area of Los Angeles. Both Jones' and Cedillo's bills took a step forward last week: The Jones bill passed out of the Assembly Health Committee, the Cedillo bill out of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

The California Hospital Association has voiced opposition to both bills on the grounds that they single out hospitals for a responsibility that belongs to all of society. "We're really the wrong target in this conversation," said Jan Emerson, a spokeswoman for CHA. When hospitals send homeless people to other counties or drop them off on the street, they often don't have shelters or other services to help them locally, she said. "This is a symptom of a much bigger problem in terms of local governments and the state and what they do in terms of providing services to the homeless," she said.

In the case of Barton Memorial, Emerson pointed out, hospital officials thought they were doing the right thing by sending the woman to a warmer area, away from the frosty streets of South Lake Tahoe. They said at the time that El Dorado County had no shelter where they could send her.

Michael Stoops, acting executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based National Coalition for the Homeless, agreed that the issue of homeless dumping reflects a deeper problem. "It points to the fact that we don't have an adequate social service infrastructure to help people that can't help themselves," Stoops said. But he voiced support for the bills. If they pass, he said, California would be one of the first states in the nation to directly take on the issue. He, and others who support the bill, say dumping can be traumatic and dangerous for homeless individuals who find themselves in a foreign environment. It also burdens urban counties, and the service providers located within them, with serving homeless individuals who live elsewhere....

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Waiting times for public hospital treatment increase

One has to laugh. As in Britain, the more money this Australian government throws at its hospitals, the worse the service gets. But reality never bothers Leftists. Their simplistic theories are all they are mentally capable of handling

Almost 30 per cent of patients still wait too long for elective surgery despite millions of dollars being spent on state health reforms. Figures released yesterday showed 9600 Queenslanders endured long waits for elective surgery between January and March - 2300 more than at the same time last year. The number waiting more than 30 days for urgent category one operations increased by 400 per cent compared with last year.

But Health Minister Stephen Robertson said category one figures showed a slight improvement in more recent months. Only 13.7 per cent faced long waits in April compared with 18 per cent in December. He blamed increasing demand for emergency operations and the increasing population for the waiting lists and hoped the trend would turn by July. "We've made some gains and I would hope in three months time we will be able to demonstrate more gains, but this is tough," Mr Robertson said. The figures show an increase in numbers on the "secret" lists of those waiting to see a specialist. At March 1, more than 122,000 people were waiting for a specialist appointment, up 12 per cent from July 2004. Of these, 82,900 were waiting for a consultation which could lead to surgery and another wait.

AMA state president Steve Hambleton said the figures were not encouraging. Opposition Leader Lawrence Springborg said the figures were a "disgrace" and showed the Beattie Government's maladministration of the state health system was continuing.

Cathleen Cantwell, 69, of Kirra on the Gold Coast, is one of thousands waiting for surgery in a Queensland hospital. She suffers from spinal canal stenosis, a condition that could leave her unable to walk. She has been booked in for surgery to correct the problem since December 2004, but is yet to see the inside of an operating theatre. And her problem is getting worse the longer she has to wait. "I can't walk very far at all especially on cement or bitumen . . . I'm in such pain when I walk," she said. She was hoping to have the operation before September so she could celebrate her 70th birthday and 50th wedding anniversary and "enjoy myself".

Source

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For greatest efficiency, lowest cost and maximum choice, ALL hospitals and health insurance schemes should be privately owned and run -- with government-paid vouchers for the very poor and minimal regulation. Both Australia and Sweden have large private sector health systems with government reimbursement for privately-provided services so can a purely private system with some level of government reimbursement or insurance for the poor be so hard to do?

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