I work in a large, well known hospital in the city where there also happens to be an abundance on homeless people. There are many times when we end up discharging patients (who were homeless to begin with) to the street. Social workers try to set them up in a shelter or nursing home if possible, but often times the patient refuses, knowing they will be sent out to the street and be homeless again. Well, yesterday we discharge this man to the street after he was a patient on our floor for about 2 weeks. I wasn't the nurse who discharged him, but I had taken care of him several times. While he wasn't the most pleasant man (came in for ETOH), when he was nice he was a pleasure to take care of. While I was walking home from work yesterday I was on the phone and happened to see this former patient looking through the trash for food. He didn't see me, I didn't stop or offer him anything, I don't think he would have even recognized me since I cared for him in the beginning of his stay. Now I feel bad and can't stop thinking about how we helped this man get better and sent him back out to the streets that got him sick in the first place, and I didn't even stop to offer him a few dollars. Anyone else sent patients out to the street, or see them after they've been discharged? Sorry about the long rant, thanks for listening/reading!
A young homeless man spent all his waking hours walking around a pole. He would eat or dring what was handed to him but keep walking. I once saw him sleeping under a bench. When I checked to se if he was breathing he got up without looking or listening and began walking around the pole. He was incontinent and wore the same clothes every day.
After nearly three weeks he collapsed and was taken to a hospital.
Nearly a year later he wrote a letter to the editor thanking the people who fed him and tried to help him.
He had a family hundreds of miles away. After mental health treatment he was working and going to school.
Sure wish all coould recover like that.
Do you mean that he was walking round and round a pole in circles!?!
This situation is always heartbreaking to me. The only way I can live with it is to take very good care of the person while they are my patient.
Donate time and other things to the community as opportunity arises and say prayers for them everynight.
It's true that many take the money and buy drugs etc. so I don't give money. There are so many lost, helpless souls out there, and more daily. I pray that they are all safe.
I have to make myself stop caring at a certain point or I would be ineffective and no help to anyone. Help in the ways that you can, and leave the rest to God.
Reading your posts & obvious concern make me so proud to be a nurse. The whole 'mind, body, spirit' thing & recognition that health care should not when the patient goes out the hospital or clinic door.
I am also proud that my organization actually has an outreach program for 'street people'... providing food & meds as needed along with psych help when it is called for. The van goes where they are... staffed with nurses & counselors.
When I was youngster and new to San Francisco, I saw a man panhandling for change outside of a fast food restaurant that I was entering. He was asking everyone for "money for food." I felt so guilty while I was inside ordering my food that I just got myself a small bag of fries and spent the rest of my limited funds to buy the homeless guy a complete meal. When I handed the food to the man on the way out, he called me all kinds of names because he had wanted cash. He even threw the bag of food in the street. Talk about wake-up calls! I have since learned that there are plenty of places in SF for people to get free food. When they want money it is usually for drugs or alcohol.
I have volunteered at various organizations around town and with my church, which has a big homeless outreach program. I have grown to care a lot about some of the people I've worked with, but I now realize that addiction is an incurable disease that some people just cannot muster the strength (even with outside resources) to manage. Hospitals should do everything they can to discharge patients to safe places, but, without violating patients' civil rights, they can't control where many of those patients choose to end up.
I had an experience similar to that. I was outside a Domino's and this homeless woman asked me for money for something to eat. I told her I had no money but offered her my breadsticks. (The only thing I go to Domino's for!) She refused and said that wasn't what she liked. I told her I wasn't giving her money for crack and to have a good day.
Oh and one more thing.. As for addiction being an "incurable" disease... Plenty of people get better. So I hope what you wrote was a typo because there are many addicts who have come very far to prove that addiction can be overcome.
Oh and one more thing.. As for addiction being an "incurable" disease... Plenty of people get better. So I hope what you wrote was a typo because there are many addicts who have come very far to prove that addiction can be overcome.
I disagree. Addiction is never cured. It can be treated and/or put into remission, but never cured.
I give homeless people food too =) I usually tend to have food on me as I am quite a hungry person =P I gave a guy with a sign 'im hungry' a banana outside my car window a bit ago (not the safest thing..but at least it was a crowded area). He seemed pleased. It was a good banana and I hope he enjoyed it =)
Specializes in Critical care, tele, Medical-Surgical.
Do you mean that he was walking round and round a pole in circles!?!
Yes. He walked around almost constantly for nearly three weeks. A woman who works right there told me. I only saw him once in a while.
He never talked or made eye contact. He was incontinent.
Paramedics and police were called but until he couldn't or wouldn't get up they said there was nothing they could do.
People handed him sandwiches and bottles of water. he ate and walked.
The newspaper had a picture of him looking clean, healthy, and smiling after he recovered.
I write a check every month to the Union Rescue Mission and volunteer when I feel up to it. A group of volunteer doctors, NPs, nurses, CNAs, and NA staff a clinic five mornings a week. Sometimes I help out.
But I do have to put the enormity of the problem out of my mind and do something fun to keep myself from going in circles.
This might sound cold-hearted, but I wouldn't offer money to a homeless person. Many spend the proceeds on alcohol or illegal drugs, and that's definitely not where I'd want my hard-earned dollars to go.
Giving them money will only make things easier in regards to scoring dope or buying the next bottle of whiskey. Giving the person a food item would be a better idea.
I never like to assume a homeless person will always use my money for booze or drugs, but it's hard not to. Instead of allowing myself to feel that way, I opt for the food, as you suggested. In reality, if someone is homeless, the little bit of help that you or I can offer will not stop them from being homeless, but it can make a small part of their day more bearable -- esp. if they get a nice meal out of it -- or even an item of clean clothing.
I had an experience similar to that. I was outside a Domino's and this homeless woman asked me for money for something to eat. I told her I had no money but offered her my breadsticks. (The only thing I go to Domino's for!) She refused and said that wasn't what she liked. I told her I wasn't giving her money for crack and to have a good day.
Yeah, I had a similar experience recently. I was getting off work and this older man was in the elevator and he asked me for a few cents to get some food. I refused and so did everyone who got on after me. I worked on the top floor and it was quitting time so we stopped on every floor to pick someone up. Like me, everyone said no because no one wants to work all day only to give some of it to somebody who has not worked all day. Still we were all a teensy bit uncomfortable because what if the old guy really was hungry?
Got about halfway down, he gave his spiel to the new passengers and one lady said no but here you can have these: some McDonald's french fries. He recoiled and said "I don't want that, they're cold!". Umm, we thought you were so hungry. We all had to laugh. We were disgusted by his scam but a little bit relieved too that a fellow human being wasn't really going hungry, especially since we all refused to help him out.
However I must say this. People love stories like this because it confirms their belief that on some level most of the homeless are really scam artists and deadbeats who just want to use their money for drugs or ETOH. Unfortunately there are some real people who were just unlucky and who really are going hungry. Most people think that there are lots of resources for the hungry and very poor but there are not. I tried to help a couple recently that had a true string of bad luck and it was frightening how much help there isn't out there, at least here in Atlanta.
We had a pt that would bounce from house to house...he was mentally "slow" and completely physically disabled. No family left living. He would live with whoever he could until they spent up all of his disability check and then they would kick him out onto the street. Once he couldn't contribute to his hosts' habits, then he was out the door and on the streets. Then his next check would come and he'd have a different home for a few days until the money was gone. He was so trusting he didn't understand he was being used.
One Sunday afternoon he ended up in our small ER. All of his money was gone. He had been kicked out of his most recent home and was back on the streets. Not a dime to his name. It was early in the month, so no more money was coming anytime soon. He cried and cried to me about having nowhere to go and how sick he felt. He is a bil AKA and brittle diabetic. The MD refused to admit him. Insisted I discharge him. I begged and pleaded with the doctor. The pt's blood sugar was over 400 and he had no meds. But he refused. We weren't gonna "start this". If we put him in the hospital just because he was homeless everytime he was homeless he'd show back up. "He's just an old drunk", he said. I asked, what am I supposed to do? Wheel him out to the parking lot and say, "Well, good luck!"? I couldn't do it. I spent HOURS on the phone trying to find somewhere for him to go. Of course, we're a tiny Southern town...nothing available on a Sunday afternoon and even the churches wouldn't help.
So I paid for him two nights in a hotel room. I told him what I was doing and made him promise he would seek help for himself or I would never help him again. I called the local police department and they drove him to the hotel and paid for his room with my money. Then I bought him groceries and took to him. The ER doc and my coworkers berated me for having SUCKER stamped across my forehead. They made me feel so bad for doing something good that I broke down in tears. They told me every drunk and homeless person in the town would be coming to see me once word got out. They were HORRIBLE to me for doing what I felt was right.
I found out later, my pt spent his two nights in the hotel and then managed to get his former primary care doc to direct admit him to the hospital. He was in renal failure. He was very, very sick the day my ER doc made me discharge him without so much as a lab test. He spent several days as an inpatient before being discharged to the nursing home.
That was October of last year. You know, he is still in that nursing home, voluntarily? And he has not been back in our ER a single time since being admitted to the home? Furthermore, friends of mine that work at the nursing home tell me he is the life of the party! He is a young man to be in a nursing home and he is very kind, compassionate, and friendly to all of the older residents. They just love having him visit their rooms and talk with them. He helps the staff out by looking out for "problem" residents and he spends hours talking with pts whose family doesn't visit.
Just my experience. Not everyone is going to go the same distance and neither way is wrong or right. You just have to do what is in your heart and what allows you to sleep at night. :heartbeat
When stationed in El Paso TX I'd see the homeless all over the place, what would get to me was the women sitting on the street outside stores with their children! Asking for money and it didn't matter if it was 120 degrees out or in the winter went it gets as low as 30 degrees. I would always offer food, some water, I always have bottled water in my truck. Really sad, some actually would have signs will work for food/money and have a broke down looking lawn mower with them.
Specializes in CCU, SICU, CVSICU, Precepting & Teaching.
when i lived in seattle, there were always folks panhandling at the downtown freeway entrances. dh and i felt bad for them and would often give them money. then one day, i was driving around in my beat-up 13 year old car and happened to see the panhandlers "changing shifts." the man who had been begging went under the freeway where his brand new suv was parked, stripped off a couple of layers of filthy garmets and got into the back for a little nap. another "homeless person" jumped out of the front, pulled on a filthy, ragged jumpsuit over her nice shorts and top and took the "homeless, please help. god bless" sign from her partner and took his place at the curb. i've never given money to a panhandler since.
but dh gives money to the ones with "interesting stories." for instance, to the guy in front of the seattle aquarium who was looking for donations "to buy me a prostitute."
Asking for money and it didn't matter if it was 120 degrees out or in the winter went it gets as low as 30 degrees. I would always offer food, some water, I always have bottled water in my truck. Really sad, some actually would have signs will work for food/money and have a broke down looking lawn mower with them.
cursenurse
391 Posts
Do you mean that he was walking round and round a pole in circles!?!