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Today is the longest night of the year and Homeless Persons’ Memorial Day, the day we remember those we have lost in the past year. I have some thoughts... (1/) #HPMD2020
I wish I felt hopeful this year. I wish I felt renewed by all the great work so many are doing to try to prevent the negative health impacts wrought by homelessness (and there are many and I’m thankful for them). But mainly I feel sad. And angry. (2/)
I feel angry that we have had patients coming through my emergency department near death from anemia due to blood loss from lice — in NYC, in 2020. There is no excuse for this—none. (3/)
I feel sad that I’ve lost two of my own patients that I know of just in the past few months, after countless cycles of hospital to homelessness and back again, whose deaths were mainly anonymous and unnoticed. (4/)
I feel frustrated that still my patients face insurmountable challenges to their health due to having no housing, in the richest country in the world. (5/)
I want to feel hopeful. I do see a new acknowledgment during this pandemic that housing is health care. We will keep fighting tomorrow. But tonight I will cry for them. I will remember them. I will be angry. Because that is how I feel. RIP my friends who deserved better. (End).
