HOUSTON -- Note: The following story is a verbatim transcript of an Investigators story that aired on Tuesday, Nov. 11, 2008, on KPRC Local 2 at 10 p.m.

Local 2 Investigates discovers what some are calling "patient dumping." Houston hospitals are accused of dropping off patients at shelters when those patients are not well enough to make it on their own.

For the first time, you'll see why the shelters are speaking out about the surprising conditions of some of those patients.

Local 2 investigative reporter Amy Davis uncovers just how widespread the problem may be.

On a Friday afternoon, Kenneth Hartman sits inside a homeless shelter downtown. He is 84 years old and is only wearing a hospital gown, a soiled adult diaper and a pair of socks. Hartman winces trying to take just a single step.

Minutes earlier, he was dropped off by a cab at the shelter's front door.

So, how did he get here?

"It's their hospital," Hartman said. "If they want me to go home, fine. But today I couldn't even stand up."

Hartman had just been discharged from a Houston hospital. When he told hospital social workers he couldn't go to his home that was damaged by Hurricane Ike, workers at Memorial Hermann Northwest Hospital sent him by cab to a downtown homeless day center called The Beacon.

"My initial reaction was my heart went out to this poor man," said Tracy Burnett, director of Cathedral Health and Outreach Ministries, the organization that runs the center. "It was like, not again. He didn't need to be here. This was the wrong place for him to be."

Burnett says it was the wrong place because not only did The Beacon close less than three hours after Hartman was dropped off, Burnett says it doesn't have the medical services to take care of anyone in Hartman's condition.

We watched workers use a rolling office chair just to move Hartman out of a common area to give him some privacy.

"I wonder if at discharge, if they would release someone like Mr. Hartman if he were their father?" Burnett said. "This is not the first time this has happened."

Instead, Burnett says patients are sent by many different hospitals in similar medical conditions almost every week. She describes patients that became unconscious, others who couldn't get up off the ground. All of the patients were still wearing hospital armbands. Many times, shelter workers called 911 and sometimes the ambulances took the sick right back to the same hospital that sent them.

"When you have someone who is that frail and that fragile and you know they need help and you know you can't give it to them, and you don't know if the ambulance is going to get there in time, it's scary."

Local 2 Investigates discovered it's not just happening at this shelter and patients are not just arriving from one hospital. We contacted 10 shelters across Houston, and each one told us employees have seen the same thing -- many different hospitals dropping off discharged patients who were too unhealthy to care for themselves.

"I guess the number of people experiencing it, that's what is surprising," explained Marilyn Fountain, community relations manager for Star of Hope.

Employees at Star of Hope men's shelter say sick patients are dropped off almost every day. They say it happened four times in the week we asked the shelter to specifically monitor the problem.

Many times, shelter employees not only have to call an ambulance to pick up men who have just arrived from the hospital, Fountain says sick patients are being dropped off at the Star of Hope women and family emergency center, too.

"I think what surprised me the most was that people were being dropped off in what I would say were clearly perilous situations in terms of their health," Fountain said. "How would you feel? You only have to ask yourself."

"That's all I wanted," said Hartman. "Just to get well."

Hartman was admitted to another hospital hours after he was dropped off at the day center. He spent a week at that hospital before being discharged to a full-service men's shelter.

Memorial Hermann Hospital would not talk about his case on camera, but a spokesperson told us The Beacon knew he was coming and the hospital sent him with a business card to contact a long-term care home ready to accept him.

Burnett says The Beacon was never told any patient would be arriving in the condition Hartman arrived. Center employees could not find any paperwork outlining housing arrangements.

A Memorial Hermann statement says, in part, the hospital "provided appropriate care and discharge arrangements and acted in his best interest ..."

So what's the solution? While Memorial Hermann does not believe it did anything wrong in Hartman's case, it does admit this is part of a larger problem -- what to do with patients who no longer need immediate medical attention but have no place to go. Doctors who work with the homeless say they are working with hospitals to come up with a plan to at least meet to talk about the problem.

State Rep. Ellen Cohen, who sits on the house public health committee, tells us she is willing to help with that meeting. So far, there are no plans for any immediate solution.

We'll keep watching to see if any progress is made.

Below is the full statement Memorial Hermann Hospital sent to Local 2 Investigates:

"As we do for all patients that present in our emergency centers for care, the Memorial Hermann emergency team that treated Mr. Hartman on October 2-3, 2008, provided appropriate care and discharge arrangements and acted in his best interest from the time he presented in the emergency center at 8:30 p.m. until his discharge to the accepting facility, Beacon Day Center, the following morning. In fact, although he had been treated the evening he arrived and was ready to be discharged, the hospital made Mr. Hartman comfortable in a hospital room overnight until the hospital was able to make arrangements for him the following day. A social worker met with the patient in the hospital and after many phone calls, secured arrangements for him. The Beacon Day Center was contacted and agreed to accept him. He would stay until a private group home the social worker had contacted could accommodate him after 3:30 p.m. He was sent with a cab voucher to Beacon."