Follow
Share
Reluctant caregivers want the hospital to find a ‘safe discharge’ that doesn’t include them. I recently wrote “Hospitals are not going to do all the work to decide on the ‘best’ alternative. There are many care options, and they vary depending the number of facilities of different types in the area, the finances available, and the health issues involved. Not to mention the preferences of the patient and the family. That’s probably why Hospital social workers do their best to send the patient home to family”.

But what about homeless people who are injured under a bridge and taken to hospital by the police. Where do they go on discharge? What is the a fall-back option for them? Would it apply to those whose family refuse to accept an ‘unsafe discharge’?
Find Care & Housing
Hospitals in America (because you, Margaret, are in Australia) do not find "safe discharge" options for people in their care who they can no longer help. This is where county social services step in. And, each county basically does its own thing when it comes to this. And sometimes hospital discharge planners take matters into their own hands and will literally put patients in Ubers and send them "somewhere", anywhere, as long as it is off hospital grounds.

Back in 2016 when my SFIL had Parkinsons and the beginnings of Lewy Body dementia he had fallen in a public parking. An ambulance was called and he went to the ER. His wife (my MIL) was in rehab having recently fallen herself. My SFIL should not have been driving, had no friends, no PoA and no money. So he gave the discharge planner my phone number (since we lived 6 miles from each other for many years).

I told the ER that I in no way was going to leave work in the middle of the day when I was 25 miles away and was also about to have to carpool my kids home from school, not to mention my SFIL was NOT my problem. Well, shortly after that call I got a call from the Sheriff of that county telling me he was driving my SFIL home himself and that I'd better be there to help get him into his house (my SFIL was 6'4"). So I went there to help get him into the house and was summarily shamed by the Sheriff for being such a dismal SDIL.

That was back before I ever knew about "unsafe discharge". Nowadays the discharge planners work with the hospital social workers to see if they have the medical and/or legal ability to get those people directly into facilities. No, they are not working to decide on the "best' alternative. They can only offer the only alternative: a facility or pressuring someone to come get them. Once they leave the hospital grounds their work is done.

Where do homeless people go? If they seem to have legal capacity they walk out the door of the hospital and go wherever they can or want. If they aren't capable of that then social services transitions them into a faciliity. Often they eventually become a ward of a court-assigned 3rd party legal guardian because often (very often) they are homeless because they are mentally ill or have a substance abuse problem. Many choose to be on the streets because they are too paranoid or dangerous to be allowed in shelters, or they are not sober and therefore cannot be allowed in a shelter. Social services in the US cannot force someone into the home of a relative *unless it is actually their legal residence to begin with*.
(0)
Report

Start a Discussion
Subscribe to
Our Newsletter