Concerned callers flooded radio talk shows this morning with news of an indigent and sick man lying on a sidewalk on New Road near a primary school. This morning when our newsroom got the call, we decided to check it out. We found the man lying on the sidewalk but Keith Swift discovered that the man known as William Dawson is just a symptom of a much larger problem.
Keith SwiftReporting,
This is where we met William Dawson this morning - he was partially nude and lying under the Valencia Building at the corner of Queen Street and New Road. Dawson - who is known as "Bust Face" - was feeble, unable to talk, and barely able to move. Rakhi Bwojwani owns a store nearby and she says that Dawson was there for days.
Rakhi Bwojwani, Called the Ambulance
"He has been there for a couple of days but this morning he was sick and trembling and he has been there for a while, from early this morning when we opened he was there and he was lying naked so I don't think it was right for him to be there because school reopened today and kids are walking up and down so we didn't feel right that he was there trembling. He was sick so that's why we called in for help."
She called an ambulance but they came and left because after an assessment - BERT says he didn't have what they call: "clinical indications to be moved to the emergency room." And while BERT left, the Red Cross arrived with a fresh suit of clothes. The team changed his clothes but only half of the problem was solved. Dawson still needed to get to the hospital - and so we decided to take him in our pickup truck. We slowly escorted Dawson -who was too weak to walk on his own - into the back of our pickup for the ride to the KHMH. Once at the hospital - he was taken out - and eventually put into a wheel chair.
William Dawson was admitted into the KHMH. He will be fed and given a bath but he will only be able to stay here for a few days because Dr. Pedro Arriaga says there is just not enough space.
Dr. Pedro Arriaga, KHMH
"Sadly the hospital has very little space to accommodate the type of patients like that. We have twenty five beds and we need to deal with not only this type of patient but patients who have acute illnesses."
And what's also sad is that William Dawson isn't the first person we've shown you dying on the street. In 2005 we met Sarita Hamilton on Orange Street. Just last year it was Bernadine Fitzgibbon - on the ground in front of the Social Security Board. Both have since died. Dr. Arriaga says patients like Sarita, Bernadine, and now William belong in a hospice - not a hospital.
Dr. Pedro Arriaga,
"The patients that chronic conditions should be treated in a different way, in a sense that we should have them not at a hospital but at a hospice in such a way that patients can get tender love and caring because at this point in time, whenever a condition is chronic, we know that these patients will never be able to be cured and then they need to improve the quality of life, not the quantity of life."
Dr. Arriaga doesn't know Dawson's HIV status but he says that if he is chronically ill - he needs to be tested and treated.
Dr. Pedro Arriaga,
"With patients we try to test as much as possible to know their HIV status. If they are negative then there is problem but we try to correct sexual behavior, whatever is involved. If the patient is in advanced stage, it's hard to live it. Some of them have been rejected by families, some of them have been rejected by employers, and they have no work and no job."
And apparently in the case of William Dawson -nowhere to go.
When William Dawson is released from the hospital, he will be placed in a homeless shelter by the Human Development Department. He will stay there by choice as the department cannot force him.
