Department of Medicine

What happens when a Colorado hospital releases a patient

Written by The Colorado Sun | September 01, 2022

One of Sarah Stella’s patients had been homeless for about four years when he was struck by a car, the impact fracturing his pelvis and breaking his femur. The 45-year-old man had surgery at Denver Health, spent a few days recovering in the hospital, and then left — to sleep in his tent. Stella, an internal medicine doctor at the safety net hospital [and associate professor of medicine at CU School of Medicine], recalled how the man described in a post-surgery appointment how much his body and his bones still hurt.