Prometheus 6

3 L.A. Hospitals Take Patients to Skid Row
The disclosures come as the city grapples with 'dumping' of the indigent downtown.By Cara Mia DiMassa and Richard Winton
Times Staff Writers
November 26, 2005

Three Los Angeles hospitals regularly put discharged patients with nowhere to go into taxicabs bound for skid row, hospital officials acknowledged this week.

Officials at Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center, Kaiser Permanente West Los Angeles and Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center said the practice is necessary because skid row is the only place in Southern California with a concentration of social services for the patients, including homeless shelters and drug and alcohol programs.

Los Angeles Police Department officials agreed that the hospitals have few other options. But they said the practice worsens the already grim conditions on skid row. They also disputed the hospitals' contention that the patients taken to skid row are always ready for release.

The hospitals are the first agencies to acknowledge a practice of routinely delivering their wards to skid row. They did so after being named in a report by the LAPD that accused the three hospitals and several suburban law enforcement agencies of leaving homeless people and criminals in downtown. The suburban police departments have denied the accusation.