Discharging a patient, recently intubated due to the most severe asthma I have ever seen, I asked, "Have you called for transport.""Yes," she answered.
"Will you be going home?"
"No."
"Where will you go?"
"I'm embarrassed to tell you."
"A boyfriend's place? Back to your sister's house?"
"No, I'm going to the shelter. But it's a real nice one. They don't even make you have to get out first thing in the morning, and they let me have my hospital bed and CPAP machine. But I don't have the five dollars for transport to pick me up, and the other five dollars to pick up my son."
Social services then gave her the ten dollars, I handed her about fifty prescriptions she won't be able to fill, and I watched her wheeled down the hall, realizing that I find no joy and no pride in caring for those who won't be cared for outside of the walls of the hospital. I want to scream at the shame of it.
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