FL hospital deports patient...

[Chief1C]

I thought we were going away from abbreviations ?

American Association of Retired Persons

AARP

[tniuqs]

Umm this is Canukistan ... I don't think Obama would approve of sending funds to Dirty Oil Rich Alberta, as if any Oil production is clean ?

As for the "Retired Persons" ... OUCH ! thats just hurtful Young Jedi !

and I used too (past tense) actually like you, back brace hater and all.

cheers

[EMS49393]

From the new article:

Some paraplegics do not always need medication. Decubitus ulcers would be his biggest problem and that would take preventitive measures and not medicine. A paraplegic who is not capable of caring for himself doesn't not have a long life expectancy. Granted Christopher Reeve was a quad but he died of sepsis stemming from decubitus ulcers after 8 years. He also had some well known specialists caring for him but they may have forgotten the little things.

Elderly? The guy is 35. Yes if she had him when she was 45 that would put her around 80. It would depend on your definition of elderly. Some use that term for someone of 60. We have RNs working FT in their 70s.

The average life expectancy in Guatemala is 69 years. If she had the boy when she was 25, she's now be 60 and could conceivably be considered elderly by their standards.

I'm on the hospital's side. I can't afford to see a doctor and I was born in American and have a legal job. They spent enough money on someone that isn't even supposed to legally be here.

[Chief1C]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090723/ap_on_...tal_deportation

Hospital Defends Actions

By LAURA WIDES-MUNOZ, AP Hispanic Affairs Writer Laura Wides-munoz, Ap Hispanic Affairs Writer – Thu Jul 23, 7:24 pm ET

STUART, Fla. – A jury began deliberations Thursday in the case of a South Florida hospital that quietly chartered a plane and sent a seriously brain injured illegal immigrant back to Guatemala over the objections of his family and legal guardian.

Health care and immigration experts across the country are closely watching the lawsuit play out. Lawyers say it may be the first of its kind and underscores the dilemma facing hospitals with patients who require long-term care, are unable to pay and don't qualify for federal or state aid because of their immigration status.

Why should Martin Memorial Medical Center have to pay for a lifetime of care "for injuries we didn't even cause?" hospital attorney Scott Machaud asked the six-member jury during closing arguments of the monthlong trial. He said the hospital saved the life of 37-year-old Luis Jimenez and provided the uninsured man with $1.5 million worth of care, only to be unfairly hit with a lawsuit.

"Paging Alice in Wonderland, where up is down and down is up and no good deed goes unpunished," Machaud exclaimed.

However, under federal law, Martin Memorial was required to care for Luis Jimenez until someone else would take him. Because of his immigration status, no one else would. But hospitals that receive Medicare reimbursements are required to provide emergency care to all patients and must provide an acceptable discharge plan once the patient is stabilized.

The lawsuit seeks nearly $1 million to cover the estimated lifetime costs of his care in Guatemala, as well as damages for the hospital's alleged "false imprisonment" and punitive damages to discourage other medical centers from taking similar action.

Jimenez was a Mayan Indian who was sending money home to his wife and young sons when a drunk driver plowed into a van he was riding in in 2000, leaving him a paraplegic with the mental capability of a fourth grader. Because of his brain injury, his cousin Montejo Gaspar was made his legal guardian.

Jimenez spent nearly three years at Martin Memorial before the hospital, backed by a letter from the Guatemalan government, got a Florida judge to OK the transfer to a Guatemalan facility. Gaspar appealed.

But without telling Jimenez's family — and the day after Gaspar filed an emergency request to stop the hospital's plan — the hospital put Jimenez on a $30,000 charter flight home in the early hours of July 10, 2003.

Weeks later, Jimenez was released from the Guatemalan hospital and soon wound up in his aging mother's 1-room home in a remote mountain village.

The case has raised the question of whether a hospital and a state court should be deciding whether to deport someone — a power long held by the federal government.

In 2004, an appeals court ruled the lower court had overstepped its authority, and that the hospital did not have the right to return Jimenez to Guatemala.

Before sending them to the jury room Thursday, Martin County Senior Judge James Midelis told jurors that the appeals court had already decided that Jimenez was "unlawfully detained and deprived of liberty." Midelis said the jury's task was to decide whether the hospital's actions were "unreasonable and unwarranted under the circumstances," and whether its actions had in turn caused Jimenez damage.

Machaud said the hospital was simply following a judge's order at the time.

But in his closing arguments earlier Thursday, a lawyer for Gaspar and Jimenez said the hospital decided to secretly send Jimenez back to Guatemala to halt what would have been a long and expensive appeals process.

"The plan was designed once and for all to stop the meter from running, to stop the expenses ... to stop the case from going all the way up to the Supreme Court — because Luis Jimenez was gone," attorney Jack Hill told the packed courtroom in the sleepy South Florida town of Stuart, just north of the exclusive community of Palm Beach.

The case could set precedent in Florida and possibly beyond.

"Regardless of the decision, it will heighten the awareness of hospitals nationwide. The next time they debate shipping a patient overseas, they're going to have to do their homework because it's going to leave them open to a lot of legal challenges and questions," said Steve Larson, an assistant dean at the University of Pennsylvania's School of Medicine and medical director of a nonprofit clinic for Latino immigrants.

Linda Quick, president of the South Florida Hospital & Healthcare Association, disagreed. She said hospitals may become even more wary about providing extended care to uninsured immigrants.

Hospitals are already struggling under the staggering costs of treating the nation's roughly 47 million uninsured. Illegal immigrants make up an estimated 15 percent of this group, according to the Pew Hispanic Center.

Jimenez's guardian initially supported sending Jimenez back to Guatemala, but became concerned after it became unclear just where he would go. By the time Gaspar won his appeal to block the hospital's plan, it was too late. By then, Jimenez was living with his 73-year-old mother 12 hours from the Guatemalan capital.

A South Florida Roman Catholic priest visited Jimenez to check on his condition. In an e-mail to The Associated Press, he described Jimenez as clean and glad to see visitors.

"It seemed that he was cooperating with his caregiver and would survive, I guessed, until his first pneumonia," wrote the Rev. Frank O'Laughlin.

O'Laughlin called the lawsuit important. He and Larson say a country that relies on cheap immigrant labor for everything from agriculture, to clothing to construction, should factor in the cost of catastrophic injuries to those providing essential services — whether it means requiring employers to offer coverage for day laborers or ensuring public and nonprofit hospitals can care for them.

Carla Luggiero, a senior associate director for American Hospital Association, said that cases such as Jimenez's are rare. Most of the time, hospitals are able to work with the families to find acceptable care.

But she also warned the issue is serious, and said the federal government should address it as it debates health care reform.

"There is absolutely no discussion about it," Luggiero said.

[CBEMT]

Why deport these people secretly? I'd rather they do it publicly.

[HERBIE1]

Why deport these people secretly? I'd rather they do it publicly.

Why CB- how positively UN-PC of you!

(And I happen to agree with you 100%.)

I would also add that if we could round up all the other illegals here, we should televise their return as well. We get daily updates of war casualties, why not a daily count of how many illegals we return to their own countries?

[Dustdevil]

I figure they don't want to be in their own country. We don't want them here. So why not deport them to a third country, like Cuba? It'd be a lot cheaper, and at least they could speak the language.

[VentMedic]

I figure they don't want to be in their own country. We don't want them here. So why not deport them to a third country, like Cuba? It'd be a lot cheaper, and at least they could speak the language.

If it wasn't for the political problems between the U.S., Cuba and the South American countries, Cuba would not be a bad alternative. Contrary to propoganda fed to Americans, Cuba does have a decent medical education and training for their physicians.

However, I think this patient is better with his mother since his life expectancy is probably running its course even if, and especiallly if, he was in the U.S.

I would also add that if we could round up all the other illegals here, we should televise their return as well. We get daily updates of war casualties, why not a daily count of how many illegals we return to their own countries?

Somewhere the U.S. has failed to enforce its borders and looked the other way to fill jobs that Americans felt they were too good to do even though we have a very high number of able bodied people on welfare. Now some want to blame the illegals for almost getting an invitation to get a job in the U.S. because of lazy American syndrome?

[tniuqs]

Why deport these people secretly? I'd rather they do it publicly.

Ha you missed the part "deport" it was a Government Document regarding repatriation, no secret and has been back home for quite some time.

WAY different and WAY more PC.

If it wasn't for the political problems between the U.S., Cuba and the South American countries, Cuba would not be a bad alternative. Contrary to propoganda fed to Americans, Cuba does have a decent medical education and training for their physicians.

However, I think this patient is better with his mother since his life expectancy is probably running its course even if, and especiallly if, he was in the U.S.

Agreed 100%.

[VentMedic]

Why deport these people secretly? I'd rather they do it publicly.

If you read the article, this was not done overnight and it may have been mentioned several times when talking to the legal guardian as an option. The legal guardian may also have though it was a bluff or had bad legal counsel. I do put a large part of the responsibility to the legal guardian to work with the hospital and Case Managers to find a reasonable solution.

We also have American families who think they can just leave a family member who is a patient in the hospital forever and refuse every option offered to them until the Ethics committee or the hospital lawyers get a court order or take legal action to assign a court appointed guardian to remove the responsibility from the families.