r/onguardforthee • u/Myllicent • 5d ago
ERs used as warming centres by Ontario’s homeless residents with nowhere else to go. Insufficient shelter space and warming centres put burden on already-overcrowded ERs, study finds.
https://www.thespec.com/news/hamilton-region/ers-used-as-warming-centres-by-ontarios-homeless-residents-with-nowhere-else-to-go/article_9489c992-cdc6-590a-aa65-6ab605461283.html?utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter&utm_campaign=user-share17
u/bewarethetreebadger 4d ago
Yeah. That’s what happens when you kick them out of parks. Did you think they’d just disappear?
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u/Morland42 4d ago
I work in Mental Health in Sask and this is true here as well. Almost everytime, top management of the hospital get upset and approach mental health to "deal" with the issue (aka get them out of there) and we have to consistently remain firm that lack of housing isn't necessarily a mental health issue, it's a nationwide social issue.
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u/Frater_Ankara 3d ago
And here in my small town in BC they are trying to set up a warming shelter and many folks have been going turbo-NIMBY to block it from happening.
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u/Morland42 2d ago
Our last shelter expansion here in my city was ultimately turned away due to NIMBYism as well just this Fall. It really sucks to see less and less services be offered at a time when the need is very evidently rising. We are just going backwards. We're experiencing people not understand how social programs and cost contribute to society. People will see soon and the pendulum will swing the other way eventually, but it's infuriating as a frontline worker seeing the lack of support via out of touch politicians.
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u/Frater_Ankara 2d ago
It really is, I blame modern society mostly; it encourages selfish behaviour and lack of compassion and personal responsibility. A big part of this is right wing dogmatic rhetoric appealing to basic instincts but we’ve eroded our social morality over decades to the point where people are completely apathetic until it happens to them. Politicians are no better, cutting budget to services because it’s an easy win and hoping it collapses on someone else’s watch.
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u/Future-Eggplant2404 3d ago
It's more than just lack of housing it's addiction, usually being a symptom of a mental health situation. I work with the homeless quite a bit, and it's addiction that is a big factor that keeps them homeless.
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u/Morland42 3d ago edited 2d ago
Sure, but when someone wants to kick out a homeless individual, does it automatically come under the mental health umbrella to do that? Lmao. Maybe I didn't explain properly but in this instance there was not a single indication of the individual needing mental health support, they simply were utilizing the hospital as a warming place before moving on. Our homeless shelters in my area are closed during the day.
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u/BigRedRoo73 5d ago
True. Sad but true. I was in the ER recently and the Security had to remove 5 homeless and possibly addicted people who were there getting warm. They had to be removed because they were starting to get loud and disruptive, and one even verbally assaulted a very elderly deaf man in a wheelchair that was apparently in the way when the homeless guy tried to get around him while he was carrying about 10 grocery bags of his belongings. He started cussing the old man out and screaming at him as he stormed out the door. People who are in the ER for sickness and tragic circumstances don't need to put up with this situation at all.
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u/Routine_Soup2022 3d ago
Sorry people trying to survive are an inconvenience to you. I am so disgusted when I read comments like this. Situations like this are the exact reason why hospitals in my area are hiring social workers in the emergency rooms to help find solutions.
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u/BigRedRoo73 3d ago
Ya, you're right. I apologize. People in the emergency room who are there for life or death situations like losing a loved one from a tragic accident or someone having a possible stroke or heart attack, or bleeding out from wounds, or helpless like this very elderly deaf man should FIRST be threatened and screamed at by addicts before any treatment. Hospitals should make signs then.
----BEFORE TREATMENT----
You must subject yourself to verbal assaults and possible physical assault from those suffering from addiction or mental psychosis.
Have health info ready
Go to Triage Desk
Have a seat
Got it.
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u/Routine_Soup2022 3d ago
No - they in fact have signs that say exactly the opposite - and security personnel to make sure that’s enforced. It’s not a free for all. I’m just getting frustrated with people vilifying those with mental health issues. Having a mental health crisis is no different than a heart attack. Both can lead to death. Of course, people with urgent or emergent conditions get seen first. That’s triage.
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u/KozzieWozzie 4d ago
my mayor in Windsor. Hates the homeless he will prob have the police kick them out of the ERS. Drew Dlikins is aasshole and the rest of Canada should be know and warned.
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u/Daveslay 4d ago
I can’t think of a better metaphor for society’s total failure to address homelessness than the fact someone living on the streets in wintertime doesn’t fit the definition of “Emergency”.
*I understand the function of ERs, no need to tell me -> That’s why I said “metaphor”
My point is the disconnect here. The distance between how I’m treated and valued versus the treatment and perceived value of another human being.
If I were to deeply slice my hand making dinner, there is a place I can go for that “emergency”. But if I was sleeping outside in -20C there might not be a place I can go for that emergency, because society doesn’t treat it like an emergency.
“A civilization is measured by how it treats its most vulnerable members” -This quote gets misattributed to Gandhi, but Gandhi doesn’t need to have said it for it to be true, and depressing.
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u/JasonGMMitchell Newfoundland 4d ago
If you or I developed frostbite or gangrene we could get treatment and go home meanwhile they develop it they will be sent back into the conditions that caused it and thats somehow acceptable in the 21st century, applauded even. Its appaling.
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u/rockcitykeefibs 5d ago
How about Doug ford does something in his province other than booze and highways?