6

6 GROUNDCOVER NEWS HEALTHCARE U-M hospital is failing homeless patients Editor's note: The opinions expressed in this article are of the author's own and not that of Groundcover News, as Lanier indicates. University of Michigan Hospital has never given me, personally, any problems. The care I have received any time I’ve been there has been above average and well worth the visit. They knew I was homeless and didn’t discriminate against me for anything … until I became an emergency contact for a friend. Then I learned that Officer Fransisco Holguin could use a few lessons in manners, and the hospital staff needs a lesson in Patient Affairs. Also, I have come across three individuals in the same situation that I am as unhoused persons, whose treatment borderlines neglect or abuse from U-M medical staff and security. Jeannie J., a single mother of three, was admitted into U-M hospital for a lung infection in early April. Her caseworker lied about an available bed at the Delonis Center, stating Jeannie had a bed there and could be discharged. One call to the Center revealed this was a lie. Then she lied about the closure date of the Daytime Warming Center, stating it was April 15, Jeannie’s discharge date, when it was in fact the 12th and had already closed. I was a patron of the warming center and can confirm it closed on the 12th. Her condition was treated by a doctor Michael Mashab (there might have been a last name of Keone), who felt her recovery was sufficient. He later discharged Jeannie on April 15, which Jeannie felt was too early, especially not having housing or a safe place to fully recover, thanks to the laziness of her caseworker. (There was another caseworker involved who tried to help, but her efforts didn’t land the end result she was hoping for.) The doctor also threatened removal by security if she refused to leave. Jeannie appealed the decision for discharge and was ultimately denied staying any longer without having to pay $3,500 per day. She left the hospital and met me back at the Delonis Center to discuss details of her visit. This sparked my interest in writing an article. We also discussed how she had been discharged to a Havenwyck Hospital in Pontiac before, where she was raped by another patient, but no one received consequences. The police took a report and something happened to the investigation; either it was completed and rendered inconclusive results or otherwise halted by local police. You will see why I included this hospital in another part of this article. The next day, my friend Steve D. was assaulted in the early morning by a group of minors who had been going I told him I was Lux’s emergency contact and Lux was still on property and I wanted to speak with someone to keep them from “trafficking” her to another county, I was not allowed to know where she was going to be transferred. I got Holguin’s name and ended up leaving. I called U-M Patient Relations and RACHAEL LANIER Groundcover vendor No. 695 around pepper spraying people at random. He called for emergency assistance. The police took a report and caught up to the group of children and proceeded to inform Steve of his options. When he went to U-M for help, they cleaned his eyes (not very well), then they discharged him the same night and threatened removal by security if he didn’t leave. There was no case work for housing or other resources. Caseworkers apparently are only employed at U-M for status and looks. I say the hospital didn’t clean his eyes well enough because I myself met with him later that morning only to see an orange crust around both eyes and hear his complaints of soreness. I gave him some baby wipes and offered to put his story in this paper as more evidence that U-M is abusing or neglecting the unhoused. I think it’s urgent to inform unhoused persons of the maltreatment at this hospital and offer suggestions for another facility that will maintain the practice of treating unhoused patients with dignity and respect. I have another friend, we’ll call her Lux, who had been off her psych medicine for three days and was starting to regress. Her symptoms were hallucinations, audio and visual, and tremors, all from a brain injury she incurred as a child. She drove both of us to U-M hospital where I, at her request, signed her into the Psychiatric side of the Emergency Department, giving my information so I could be her emergency contact. I left feeling as if she would be cared for properly and a few days in the hospital would definitely help everything. I got a call from her later stating the hospital was going to transfer her to another psych ward outside of Ann Arbor, against her wishes, and that she wanted me to come up there and discuss options. While I was at the hospital, I was promised a chance to speak to Lux, which was ultimately changed to speaking to a caseworker, which ultimately led to Mr. Security Officer Fransisco Holguin telling me to leave because I had no reason to be there. He stated that Lux was a grown woman and that she could call me when she got where she was going. Even though spoke to a house manager whose name I didn’t quite hear, and explained that Lux had a support system here, that she only needed her psych meds refilled, and that sending her away from Ann Arbor meant she wouldn’t be able to come back for her car or any of her friends. Being unhoused means when you find people who don’t take advantage of you, those people become friends. I was promised a call back and never received one. This goes back to a lack of accountability because: who will ever know? She was homeless anyway. Lux was transferred to Havenwyck in Pontiac, the same facility I mentioned above that already had a history with Jeannie. Lux called me to let me know she had arrived and that a caseworker, Scott, would be assigned to her. Throughout her stay there, she was sexually assaulted by a male nurse while threatening her with an injection. She did report the assault, but who knows if that hospital would be doing any kind of investigating. Jeannie didn’t get any justice, Lux will probably see the same result. She also requested help from the Easter Seals assistance organization, who never called me as her emergency contact to discuss her plan of discharge. Her Havenwyck caseworker Scott called me only hours away from her discharge instead of making contact earlier in her stay at his facility, to plan her return to Ann Arbor. I didn’t answer the call, so Havenwyck decided she would be discharged to a shelter in Oakland. Lux called me as soon as she was at the Hope Shelter and wanted help getting back to Ann Arbor. She stated the shelter staff were kind and professional but that area of Pontiac had a bad reputation and she was still fearful. I had been fortunate enough to have some money and a friend in Detroit who Ubers for a living. He went immediately to get her and she arrived in Ann Arbor around 9:30 that night. She came to the Delonis Center to get some gear out of storage and went to go get her car that was still parked at the hospital. U-M “trafficked” Lux to Oakland county with the knowledge she didn’t readily have the means to return to Ann Arbor. It’s almost as i U-M Hospital has an agenda to “rid” Ann Arbor of any and all unhoused persons. I make that statement on my own without any affiliation to Groundcover News, so if someone wants to sue, you come for me and me alone. I got you, darlin’. Another friend of mine, who is also an unhoused person, is Robin N. She had a blister on her foot that burst, causing extreme pain. She hasn’t had much luck finding shoes in her size, not good ones anyway, as the last pair she received were used and actually speculated to have caused the massive infection inside her foot. She had already been cleaning the site, as it wasn’t her first blister. Only it kept getting worse from walking, and had begun to become more of a hole instead of just a popped blister. Days later, she had so much pain coming from her foot that she called an ambulance to take her to the U-M Emergency Department. They examined her foot and advised her to keep it clean, gave her some pain medicine similar to Ibuprofen, and discharged her the same night. Some days later at the Delonis Center, all the while taking care of her sore foot as instructed, the pain became so intense that, with a little convincing from myself and another friend, she opted to call the ambulance again. She had already been wearing the other pair of used shoes for a few days at this point. When emergency services arrived, we asked our caseworkers to please instruct the drivers to take our friend to St. Joseph’s (Trinity Health Ann Arbor Hospital in Ypsilanti) for treatment. Discrimination, maltreatment, or more possibly neglect from medical staff at U-M would only make things worse at this point and we didn’t want her to lose her foot. We all feared she would have been threatened with removal by security and she already couldn’t walk anymore. We were already aware there was a history of U-M mistreating unhoused persons based on the real experiences already detailed in this article of people I know personally. When she first arrived at St. Joseph’s she was pulled into surgery as her foot was so infected. They had to fillet her foot open on the top to allow for drainage. It was debated whether or not she would lose her big toe. Thankfully, their treatment plan worked. She was treated for diabetes as well, so this could have ended badly for her if her concerns and pain had been dismissed or she were discharged the same day again. Her foot has been sewed up and she is expected to make a full recovery at a facility in Ann Arbor. I have written this article as a cry for see HOSPITAL next page  MAY 15, 2026

7 Publizr Home