A scheme, driven by the Oldham Council is making efforts to make homeless people a priority and improve their health care rights. Putting rough sleepers amongst most vulnerable groups.
The life expectancy of a homeless person is 45 for men and 43 for women.
During covid, Gp’s in Oldham launched a scheme to vaccinate the homeless to protect them from COVID 19, as a voulnrable group.
This scheme has continued and developed over the past four years. Depaul UK homeless shelter became a vaccination clinic in 2021.
The scheme has grown more each year, vaccinating homeless people across Manchester for all vaccinations such as flu, COVID 19, MMR and more.
This has saved so many people across the city of Manchester that unfortunately are an overlooked minority group when it comes to health care.
There are many minority groups that are overlooked in healthcare, arguably the most overlooked is homeless people.
Peter Gibson is closely involved in the charity.
“I got involved with Homeless-Friendly through my long friendship with Dr Chauhan. He told me that during the course of his rounds as an out-of-hours doctor, he had met a homeless man who was pulling out his own teeth with pliers because he couldn’t get dental treatment. We also met a homeless man who had walked six miles to a hospital emergency ward because surgeries would not treat him as he didn’t have a fixed adress.”
The charity has not only rolled out vaccines. They have also persuaded hundereds of practices, hospices and hospitals to treat rough sleepers as they would any other patient.
Homeless people are often turned away from hospitals and refused treatment due to a lack of home adress and NHS number which in many cases leads to further illness and issues.
Despite the work the charity have done problem of homeless health still exists. The statistics are shocking.
It’s not just physical health that homeless people suffer with, they also suffer with terrible mental health problems. It can be isolating and many feel they have no one to turn to. The charity also provide services to help mental health, even if its just someone to chat to.
In addition, hypothermia, abuse and problems with addiction.
These issues are all things that the GP’s in Oldham also offer services for, even if it’s just a shoulder to cry on and someone to talk to. The quote “homelessness is not just for Christmas” sums up the experience of being homeless around Christmas. There is so much support on Christmas day for homeless people, however the help stops soon after.