Wednesday 26 January 2011

Homelessness and Health

There are several debates about the average life expectancy of a rough sleeper but what are the real issues affecting their health.

Maintaining general good health on the streets can be difficult, as there is little chance to rest in order to recover from an illness. Health issues can creep up slowly in the form of diabetes (which is often hard to recognise at first by an individual) hep B or C, or HIV. Due to the nature of services provided it may not always be possible to get healthy and nutritional food, so inevitably overall health is affected. 

Accessing medical services should not be too hard as most areas with a recognised homeless population should provide suitable support services. These may include drop in sessions at a day centre, hostel, or in some cases,  a designated surgery for homeless clients.

Managing medication can be tricky, especially if there is nowhere to store it. Many day centres dislike handling or storing medication and GP surgeries are reluctant to provide daily prescriptions. Depending on the medication, it can be very valuable on the streets and can quickly be stolen.

Whilst not all rough sleepers will experience these problems, Outreach Workers need to be aware of these issues and thoroughly asses rough sleepers in order to identify appropriate support services.

Please comment and share your knowledge.

4 comments:

  1. hi spike..might be interested to know,has always been problems registaring with GP when street homeless,most receptionists at GPs,even at designated homeless medical places,and hospitals too,unaware you can give your address as a daycentre you use,or a GPs medical practice as your address,or they want is a Postcode,you can if you wish to vote,give your address as a park bench in a certain street,or park...regards
    member of general public,with experiance of street homelessness

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  2. Dear Anonymous, thank you for your comment.
    It is interesting to hear that although there are services specifically provided for homeless clients that in your experience have still had problems. I shall endeavour to ensure I offered more support to my clients in case they experience that same lack of cooperation.

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  3. Here is link from The Lancet, regarding morality rates. Its is unfortunately quite old, but all that I have been able to find

    http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140673605608689/table?tableid=tbl1&tableidtype=table_id&sectionType=lightBlue

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  4. Whenever I see people on the streets, sleeping, eating, etc, I can't stop myself of feeling bad about their situation. I sometimes think that when these people die one day, no one might even care to take care of their funeral or their burial. (sigh)
    phentermine 37

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