Monday, January 29, 2018

God's Hotel - Victoria Sweet

Over the past few years, Dr Victoria Street has spent the majority of her career working at the Laguna Honda Hotel - a charity hospital in San Francisco.  It is a long term facility caring for the patients who are unable to be looked after in the community dealing with aids, stroke, alchoholics,  dementia and hospice care patients many of whom are discharged from local hospitals. 

It is the patients stories that shine and help to push the story foreward.  There is lots of pressure from administrators and accountants for the hospital to reduce admissions, discharge patients and cut staff costs.  Like all health care there are a lot of implications with cuts, and I think the author does a good job of talking about the consequences of putting these types of patients back home.  How that then they bounce back to the hospital more often increasing their medical costs, and how there is little community support to help these patients when they have needs 24/7. 

This is the type of book that I could have carried on reading  and just wanted more and more of her stories.  4/5

1 comment:

John Bellen said...

Most administrators - indeed, most people these days - look only at the short-term, especially when it comes to money.