In February 2007, the Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center in Los Angeles abandoned Gabino Olvera, a mentally ill paraplegic man, on the street: “[The hospital] took him across town in a van and left him in a soiled hospital gown without a wheelchair in the heart of the city’s homeless area.” Olvera, with the help of an advocacy organization called Public Counsel, is now suing them for neglect and elder abuse (although we’re not sure how the second one applies since he’s only 42). His case is “one of about 50 reported incidents in the past 12 months of sick, confused and homeless patients being left by ambulances” in downtown LA.

Witnesses who came to Olvera’s aid said they saw him dragging himself on the ground with hospital papers and documents clenched in his teeth while the driver sat in her van and applied makeup before driving off.

The incident was captured by security cameras at a nearby homeless shelter.

Olvera’s lawyers say that one purpose of the suit is to force area hospitals to stop illegally dumping the homeless.

“Paraplegic man dumped in LA gutter sues hospital” [Reuters]

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