Smile…You Just Dumped A Patient On Camera

LA Rescue Mission’s Camera Captures 63 Year-Old Patient Dumped on Skid Row by Bellflower Hospital.

For years, hospitals in LA have been accused of dumping indigent patients on Skid Row. And for years, LA hospital officials have denied the accusations.

Until now.

Captured by Union Rescue Mission’s “dumping cam,” a taxi was recorded making a U-turn in front of the mission and then driving out of the camera’s view. Moments later, 63 year-old homeless woman, Carol Ann Reyes of Gardenia, CA, walks into the frame from the precise spot where the cab had dropped her off. Wandering aimlessly and incoherently on the street in front of the Mission, Reyes was finally escorted into the facility after she was discovered by volunteers and workers.

Almost unfathomable in its inhumanity and recklessness, both citizens and well-respected county officials report that city hospitals and the LAPD are the worst culprits when it comes to dumping people on Skid Row.

In similar incidents, prosecutors have filed civil charges against Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center in Los Feliz and Methodist Hospital in Arcadia for dumping two patients each in the downtown area over a period of 14 months–including a paraplegic man found crawling in a gutter. According to charges, the patients were left there without informed choice and void of any plan for follow-up care.

Currently, 47 million people in the U.S. are without health insurance.