NewsTribune

Book explores doctor’s drive to help

In Tracy Kidder’s book ‘Rough Sleepers,’ she explores the work of Dr. Jim O’Connell, an individual who dedicated his life to helping the homeless.

By Madeline Matson

For the News Tribune

Some amazing individuals leave their marks on the national or international stage but there are others who make large and important contributions on a smaller stage. Dr. Jim O’Connell of Boston is one of those mostly unsung individuals. He has devoted his professional life to serving “rough sleepers,” an old British term for individuals who live outside.

Tracy Kidder, a journalist who has won multiple awards for his immersive nonfiction, spent several years following Dr. Jim (as he’s called by his homeless patients) on his rounds, meeting his dedicated associates and the many characters who share his life on the streets. The resulting book is “Rough Sleepers: Dr. Jim O’Connell’s Urgent Mission to Bring Healing to Homeless People.”

A product of Harvard with an undergraduate degree in philosophy and a medical degree, O’Connell heads the Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program. The Boston Health Care for the Homelss Program is an extensive service involving medical care from mobile vans, in shelters and respite centers and in clinics and hospitals (the famed Mass General), wherever unhoused individuals need help.

O’Connell came late to medicine. After time spent as a teacher, bartender and graduate student in England, he decided that medicine might offer what he was seeking. Upon graduation from medical school, he was offered a fellowship in oncology at Memorial Sloan-Kettering in New York City but a mentor persuaded him to work for a year under a new grant program that would address medical needs of the increasing number of homeless in Boston. He agreed and was named the program’s first administrator.

He began treating people who had complex diseases and ailments that could be treated successfully in normal circumstances but these patients had no regular care. From drug overdoses, suicide attempts, undertreated diabetes, hypertension and, above all, mental illness, he saw the number of homeless grow each year, especially as Boston was becoming more and more gentrified, with places that once could accommodate street people no longer existing. But most importantly, O’Connell sees this growth as a result of income inequality, racism and la ack of affordable housing, whether public or private.

O’Connell’s Street Team rode in a van, available for treatment on site, and the team held regular meetings about individual patients. Throughout his years of intimate contact with vulnerable people, O’Connell noted the strong connection between health and educational status, with homeless individuals having lower life expectancies. He contends that housing without adequate social support often leads to eviction and other problems.

Knowing the stories of people he treated, he and other doctors estimated that 75 percent of patients had been abused as children, with such abuse carrying lifetime effects. A psychiatrist colleague of O’Connell’s said: “I never heard such stories of childhood trauma in my life. Neighbors and stepfathers who raped them. Mothers who beat them with pots. It gives you the impression of a feral society.” O’Connell’s own mother suffered from clinical depression, and he only found out as an adult why his mother wasn’t present during much of his youth. His father’s generation looked on mental illness “as a failure of character and of recovery as a matter of will.” Those attitudes still linger amid changes in medical treatment and new medications and they often surface when communities attempt to develop mental health programs.

In his time spent with the doctor, Kidder came to know and appreciate many men and women from the street who served as friends and sometimes partners to O’Connell. Their stories are profiled throughout the book, demonstrating resilience and bravery in the face of struggle.

O’Connell, called “saintly” by so many, would just say that he’s doing work that needs to be done. He believes the real need is a new war on poverty.

This book documents the meaning of good work and good works. It can serve as a model for other cities and towns in their efforts to address the reality of homelessness.

Madeline Matson is the reference and adult programming librarian at Missouri River Regional Library.

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2023-05-28T07:00:00.0000000Z

2023-05-28T07:00:00.0000000Z

https://edition.newstribune.com/article/282308209479316

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