Bodycam gives closer look into hospital patient dumping crisis in Polk County
By: Hospital patient dumping continues to be a crisis in Polk County, and newly obtained body-camera video shows another recent incident.
A Lakeland police officer responded to US 98 and George Jenkins Boulevard for a panhandling incident at around 1:30 p.m. on January 20. He stopped and talked with a man who asked him if he had done something wrong, to which the officer responds, "Yeah. Panhandling's illegal."
The man responds that he didn't know that.
He explained to the officer that he came from St. Augustine, and he has only been in the city for about a week. He has also been homeless for a year.
"Who brought you here?" the officer asked.
"The people from Advent Health Deland brought me to the Lakeland hospital," the man told the officer.
The man said Lakeland Regional Health then discharged him and took him to a homeless shelter in the area.
"So the hospital just threw you out the front door and didn't offer you a ride back to Advent Deland?" the officer asked.
"No," the man responded.
"That's pretty crappy of them, man," the officer said.
Talbot House Ministries, a homeless services provider in Lakeland, previously told FOX 13 that hospitals dumping patients on their doorstep has become a growing crisis, because they don't have the medical capabilities to take care of them.
"They say they've called us but, we've never received a call. They tell them there's going to be a bed waiting for them. They show up on our door," said Deborah Cozzetti, the director of programs for Talbot House Ministries.
A vast majority of the time, the patients themselves don't know where they're going. In a statement, the senior vice president of administration at Lakeland Regional Health wrote:
"...Lakeland Regional Health is required to have a safe discharge plan for patients. We may discharge a patient to a shelter or other living facility if that’s where the patient is/has been residing. On a daily basis, we routinely coordinate and communicate directly with local agencies prior to discharging patients from our facility to ensure appropriate placement for our patients..."
At the end of the police interaction, the officer gave the homeless man a verbal warning and let him go on his way. It's unknown if he was able to make it back home to St. Augustine.
A spokesperson for the police department said they don't have any firm numbers as of right now to show how many incidents they respond to on a daily or weekly basis. But, they're working with the Polk County Homeless Coalition to get a better grasp on the issue.