Title: Can Homeless People Go to the Hospital? - HomelessAdvice.com
Headings: Can Homeless People Go to the Hospital?
Can Homeless People Go to the Hospital?
Content: What Hospitals Do for the Homeless
As a homeless person, you can visit any hospital in the United States and they cannot turn you away if it’s something that’s immediately life-threatening. If it’s not, they may accept you in the emergency room but they won’t run any tests or try to fix whatever is wrong with you if it’s not deemed to be life-threatening. For example, if you’re feeling light-headed and have chest pains, they’ll accept you in the emergency room if you just walk in and they’ll run any necessary tests to make sure it’s not a heart attack or other serious problem. But if they run these tests and discover you also have cancer, they usually won’t treat your cancer unless you’re on the verge of dying from it. I knew a homeless man who had liver cirrhosis and doctors said he had less than a few months to live, but they wouldn’t give him a liver transplant or operate on him because it wasn’t immediately life-threatening and because the operation was risky and not guaranteed to work. If he were to walk in there on the day he’s dying in pain and with a high temperature, they would provide him with a bed and enough care to ease his pain while he’s there, but they would not do the surgery on him without him having money or medical insurance for it. Wait Times
Wait times will vary, depending on what is wrong with you. If it’s an emergency or something that is urgent, you’ll usually be seen right away. The wait time may vary up to 7 hours in cases like this, but you can still visit the emergency room like anybody else and wait in the lobby until it’s your turn. As far as the emergency room knows, you’re a regular patient just like anybody else.