Hospitals to pay $1.6 million in skid row dumping case

[steven johnson]

Cherry picking and patient dumping has bee a quiet scandal for decades.

Two suburban psychiatric hospitals admitted sending more than 150 patients to fend for themselves on skid row over a two-year period, prosecutors announced today in the largest settlement yet in L.A.'s campaign against patient dumping.

City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo said his office reached the agreement with College Hospital, which runs psychiatric hospitals in Costa Mesa and Cerritos, and which allegedly dumped the patients during 2007 and 2008. Delgadillo said that the hospital would pay $1.6 million in penalties and charitable contributions to a host of psychiatric and other social service agencies.

It also agreed to establish new protocols for discharging homeless patients with mental disorders and would agree to respect a "no-go zone" similar to a gang injunction, which prohibits gang members from operating in a specific geographical area.

Authorities have alleged that perhaps dozens of hospital have dumped patients on skid row against their will, often people with no insurance and no family to help find them places to live. But until now, the City Attorney's office has followed up on specific cases. In the case of College Hospital, however, prosecutors uncovered a much larger system of sending patients to downtown.

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