Lucky to be alive

Quick update on yesterday. My neighbor was sent home from the hospital at midnight last night, but the hospital staff called a cab for him (and paid for it). His heart is OK, he was given some powerful pain medication that has helped temporarily, and he felt he was treated well, though he still cannot get an appointment to see his primary doctor, who is the only person who can authorize the treatment he needs. I'll take him to a pharmacy later today to get additional pain medication.

Today was my first day as an official story-collector in support of the Homeless Bill of Rights. I went to Street Roots this morning to meet with several people who wanted to tell me their stories, and I listened and took pages of notes and a few pictures.

This is Dennis, who has a hair-raising story that includes praise for the health care system, which seems only fair, to balance my rant yesterday.

Last Friday, Dennis was hit by a car at about 2 p.m. while he was in a legal crosswalk. He was thrown to the pavement but not run over by the car, and while he was trying to get up off the ground, the car sped away and ran through a traffic light at the next intersection. He wasn't able to see the license plate on the car. No one stopped to help him, and no one came forward as a witness.

He made his way to a nearby bicycle shop, where they allowed him to wash his hands and get some paper towels to stanch the blood on his hands and knees. He explains,

"I was shook up. I was like, what happened? Did that just happen? I couldn't stop shaking. So I thanked them and made my way to the Mission for dinner. I told my friends, and one of them said I should call 911, so I used the pay phone at the Mission. About forty-five minutes later, the cops showed up and took notes and told me they would file a report. But they didn't give me anything to sign, so I was feeling like it was a waste of time. They didn't say a thing about me getting any medical treatment. I was still bleeding, but they didn't care. Saturday I went to the police office to check on the incident, and there was no report at all. They just blew me off, like, 'He's homeless, he's worthless. Forget it.' So I was shaken up all weekend, couldn't seem to get my head around what happened. I tried to get a bus ride to the hospital, but the bus driver said no, not without a ticket.

"I didn't get to the hospital till Monday, when I got a bus ticket from a friend of mine at the Mission. I went to the Emergency at Providence Hospital. I told them I'm homeless, I don't have any health care or anything, and they took real good care of me, treated me like a real person. They took some of the green-painted cross-walk stones out of my hand where they were embedded in my skin, and they put ointment and bandages on me and gave me a scan, where they put you in a tube and check you out. CAT scan I guess they call it. They said I didn't have any broken bones. I was lucky. Then they gave me some antibiotics to take there, and some antibiotics to take home and swallow every eight hours, and they called the Mission to get me a bed for the night. Then they called a cab and sent me to the Mission. I'm just coming from there right now."

I think it's fair to say our health care system is inconsistent. Hearing Dennis's story, and contrasting it with the story of my neighbor's experience, I can only conclude that there are systems in place to cover the cost of Dennis's medical expenses, while my neighbor's coverage only extends to the insurance he signed up for. At least my neighbor got a ride home last night and he's feeling better. I'm glad Dennis survived to tell the story, though I'm not sure he's especially lucky.