Part 2: How I ’m helping rough sleepers in London access healthcare

Continued from Part 1. We come across one rough sleeper we know from our previous outreach work – a gentleman, who we think is somewhere in his 60s. He’s been in the City of London for years and he’s been a rough sleeper, all around London, for decades. He is somebody who doesn’t engage with homeless support services. Often, if anybody approaches him, he starts to walk away straight away, or he’ll start shouting at you asking you to leave. If you do manage to ask him a few questions, he’ll give you a few answers, and then he’ll quickly get very angry and ask you to leave. This gentleman, unfortunately, had to be hospitalised last year for a severe infection in his legs. He had refused medical treatment for weeks and weeks and weeks, and it got to the point where he was so frail and unwell, we had to use the Mental Capacity Act to admit him to hospital. He has very swollen legs and struggles to walk. He also seems to have some sort of problem with his spine which means he’s very hunched over as well and at times he looks uncomfortable with neck and shoulder pain. But when you ask him about these things, he says it’s just about getting old. He accepts it and thinks there’s nothing that can be done for it. This gentleman disappeared for a bit during COVID-19. We were particularly worried about him because of his age and went looking for him. We’d look for him week after week but there was about a six-week period where we couldn’t find him. We think he’d...
Source: Doctors of the World News - Category: International Medicine & Public Health Authors: Tags: Uncategorised Source Type: news