I work in A&E. I see the brutal reality of the UK's homelessness crisis every day Rising numbers of homeless people have an impact on the NHS, but healthcare services can’t solve the problem alone
Sam’s in his mid-20s, give or take a couple of years, and has attended the hospital where I work six times in the last four months. He’s alright, he reckons, but he’s got a skin infection on his foot that just won’t shift. I have another look at his foot, send some skin swabs to the lab and we try a different kind of dressing on it.
I prescribe another course of antibiotics for this recurring skin infection, but the reason it persists is because Sam’s sleeping on the floor outside a tube station, not a lack of medication. He tells me that his family are hundreds of miles away, that his mates just don’t have any space for him, that he can’t go back to a hostel because it’s just too difficult for him to avoid alcohol there, that he’s fed up and has exhausted all available options.
The Guardian
