Friday, September 21, 2018

Street Medicine For The Homeless

While the rich receive excellent medical treatment in the US, this is what the rest of us get:

“Street medicine,” which had only a few resolute practitioners when it got its start in the mid-1980s, has surged within the past decade, growing into a network of programs in over 85 cities and in 15 countries. In the United States, street medicine programs are operating in more than 20 states and at least 45 cities, including New York, Chicago, Atlanta, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, Detroit and Washington, D.C.

Advocates attribute much of the growth to organized efforts by street medicine supporters to expand awareness and create new programs. The first street medicine symposium was held in 2005 in Pittsburgh, followed by the creation of the Street Medicine Institute four years later. A 2017 symposium in Allentown, Pennsylvania, drew more than 500 international participants, compared with a handful at the Pittsburgh gathering.

So-called point-in-time estimates by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development placed the number of homeless people at 553,742 in 2017. Two-thirds, or 360,867, were in emergency shelters or transitional housing. The remaining third, or 192,875, were in unsheltered locations — making them most vulnerable to threatening diseases and physical abuse.

You can read the rest @
https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/blogs/stateline/2018/09/18/the-homeless-get--sick-street-medicine-is-there-for-them

Yes, "our" government, institutions, and corporations have failed us.

And I almost forgot ... so did most of the mega-churches.

No comments:

Post a Comment