A new task force will meet before the end of August to come up with solutions to illegal dumping of patients at Haven for Hope.
Since opening its doors in the spring, the campus has witnessed a number of homeless patients still in need of substantial medical care being discharged from hospitals and left by voucher-funded taxis on its doorstep. They typically show up at Prospects Courtyard, the outdoor area where residents sleep on the ground under the stars.
Haven for Hope, while it has a number of medical beds, is not equipped to provide complex care, officials said.
The task force was created Friday at a meeting set up by Rep. Jose Menendez, D-San Antonio. He said his goal in organizing the session at the $100 million homeless campus was to come up with positive, not punitive, solutions.
Representatives from eight area hospitals attended.
“Instead of just wagging our fingers at people, I felt we all really need to come together and start a dialogue” on how to stop patient dumping at Haven, he said. “Let’s pool our resources, thoughts, minds and money and solve this. I’m very hopeful. I heard some good ideas today.”
Ideas discussed at the session, which was attended by close to 40 people, included the prospect of converting an existing structure into a skilled-nursing facility to care for homeless patients who don’t require the acute care of a hospital but are not physically well enough to be admitted into the rigorous program at Haven.
“We need to come up with a way that will save the hospitals a lot of money by letting them discharge these people, and yet the people discharged will still get the proper medical care,” said Haven Chairman Bill Greehey.
He added that the Nix Healthcare System already has in place another sort of solution: It contracts with area nursing homes and sends them patients who still need care, just not hospital-level care, and pays them for it on a daily basis.
“Why don’t we have a daily accounting of nursing home beds available throughout the county and then have an agreed-to rate that the hospitals could pay them?” asked Menendez, who also intends to write new state legislation regarding patient dumping at homeless shelters during the next legislative session — a law that would include penalties for hospitals that disregard its stipulations.
Patrick Carrier, CEO of Christus Santa Rosa Healthcare System, said he conducted his own investigation after Santa Rosa was accused of dumping at patient at Haven for Hope. But he said Haven officials could provide little in the way of concrete evidence.
“It was unsubstantiated,” he said. “(Haven) even apologized to us, saying they had no proof other than a comment that was made.”
Carrier attended Friday’s meeting and said he thought it “went well overall.”
“I think the next step is for all the parties involved to get together and try to work out a solution together, as opposed to everybody operating in their own silo,” he said. “This is obviously a community problem and a societal problem. While the hospitals are intimately involved, we need more than just the hospitals to solve this problem.”
Carrier said his hospital system will send “two or three people” to participate in the task force, which will be made up officials from hospitals, state agencies and other organizations.
Menendez said he hopes the task force’s solutions will serve as a model for urban counties throughout the state.
Website: www.mysanantonio.com/health/task_force_to_look_at_patient_dumping_99675704.html