HOLLYWOOD, Calif. – The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has filed a lawsuit against Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center (HPMC) on behalf of a 42-year-old paraplegic male patient who was abandoned by ambulance attendants in Los Angeles’ Skid Row.
The hospital is being sued for negligence and elder abuse for unspecified damages. In February 2007, HPMC released Gabino Olvera with the intent of dropping the patient off at a homeless shelter in downtown Los Angeles.
However, Olvera was abandoned on Skid Row, an area in downtown Los Angeles thought to have the highest number of homeless people in the United States. Security cameras at Midnight Mission, a nearby homeless shelter, captured Olvera being dropped off in a van, while the driver applied make-up before she drove away. Olvera, witnesses said, was dragging himself on the ground with hospital documents clinched in his teeth, wearing a soiled hospital gown without a wheelchair.
Along with the hospital, the transportation company and the driver, as well as the hospital’s corporate owners are named in the lawsuit. The hospital expects to settle out of court.
Currently, there are no laws against patient dumping, therefore civil charges of unfair business practices were filed against the hospital and van service. The case is set to go to trial Apr. 15.
