Civil Complaints Filed Against Two L.A. Hospitals

Los Angeles prosecutors filed civil complaints yesterday accusing two hospitals — Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center, in Los Feliz, Calif., and Methodist Hospital, in Arcadia, Calif. — of dumping homeless patients in downtown Los Angeles, reports the Los Angeles Times. In one instance, a paraplegic man wearing a colostomy bag was found crawling in a gutter in the city’s “skid row” area, the newspaper said.

The complaints by the Los Angeles city attorney’s office are related to four incidents of alleged patient dumping — two by each hospital — in a 14-month period.

Rocky Delgadillo, the city attorney, is trying to use a California state law to act against the hospitals. The law allows a corporation to be sued for unscrupulous behavior. The civil complaints seek fines against the two hospitals and a judge’s order to forbid the practice of dumping patients.

Last year the city filed false imprisonment and dependent-care endangerment charges against Kaiser Permanente — the nation’s largest nonprofit health-care organization — after an elderly patient who was discharged from one of Kaiser’s hospitals was videotaped wandering through a run-down neighborhood wearing nothing but a hospital gown after being dropped off in the area by taxi.