The proposed bill comes after a homeless woman died of hypothermia after she was discharged from Salem Health Hospital. It would require hospitals to change how they discharge homeless patients, requiring a warm handoff to a shelter or service provider, providing patients with a warm meal, clothes, transportation and health screening and help them enroll in Medicaid.
Hospital executives, meanwhile said they do not have the resources to meet the bill’s requirements.
“[The bill] requires hospital emergency departments to take on more, placing the burden of Oregon’s systematic homelessness crisis already on a stressed healthcare system,” Andi Easton, a lobbyist for the Association of Oregon Hospitals, told KATU.
The bill is similar to a California law passed in 2019, but hospital advocates say there is no data that shows it improved patient outcomes.
