Hospitals grapple with challenge in caring for homeless--respite care facilities

[Warpy]

1. They can't treat the homeless the way they do people with homes and families

People used to convalesce in the hospital and that allowed them to build up strength before they went home to confront housework and jobs. These days, they're pushed out as soon as they're medically stable on oral medications.

That doesn't work for homeless people. They can't care for themselves appropriately out in a tent or under a tarp in the woods (or worse) and they will always bounce back in record time.

Perhaps when we start to see Medicare extended the way it might have been had Joe Lieberman (I-worm) not been in office, we'll see convalescent units for people with no homes and elderly people with no families to care for them.

Something's got to give, bounce back patients are always a lot sicker than they were on the first admission. What we are doing is not working.