View Full Version : Illegal Immigrant Allegedly Forced to Leave Hospital
A Texas hospital is under fire for allegedly telling a surgical patient she had to leave the hospital immediately because she was an illegal immigrant.
Maria Sanchez, 24, told the Houston Chronicle that she had been at John Sealy Hospital -- part of the University of Texas Medical system -- for six days when a doctor told her on Jan. 12 that she should go to Mexico to have surgery on her growing spinal tumor. The hospital discharged her that day, the paper reported.
Sanchez's husband, Luis Aguillon, a legal U.S. resident, told the paper his wife is now getting medical care in Houston. But the couple's case is sparking a nationwide ethics debate.
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/02/08/texas-hospital-allegedly-discharging-surgical-patient-immigration-status/
Note: Published February 08, 2011
Ducimus
02-08-11, 06:03 PM
I'm gonna side with the hospital. Nobody likes a freeloader.
I'm gonna side with the hospital. Nobody likes a freeloader.
I do agree. :yep:
gimpy117
02-08-11, 07:06 PM
yes, If she was just off the table or about to die it would be unethical...but im betting she wasn't about to drop dead any second.
Gargamel
02-08-11, 07:16 PM
Having been in the hospital for 6 days means she no longer falls under EMTALA. That law was written to cover emergency treatment and labor. Hence the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EMTALA). If the Doctors deemed her stable, and in no immediate life threat, then her inability to pay (assumed reason) would allow them to discharge her. Her transfer to another hospital would only be illegal if they sent her by ambulance without having a physician accept her at the receiving facility.
While the law does specificy citizenship and inability to pay are not reasons to deny treatment, she does not fall under this law because she was (assumed) in a fully stable, yet chronic, condition.
Aguillon said after his wife's discharge the couple visited at least five hospitals and three clinics before finally moving to Houston, where she qualified for care and is now being treated at Ben Taub General Hospital .
Clearly it was a failure to pay issue, else those other 8 facilities would be in the same spot. If this person wasn't an illegal immigrant, this would have never made the news.
bookworm_020
02-08-11, 07:43 PM
Maybe she could have washed the sheets and she would be allowed to stay?:hmmm:
Skybird
02-08-11, 07:52 PM
If you want to benefit from the system, you have to contribute to the system. By paying legal taxes. If she is an illegal alien, she doesn't pay taxes. When I go there as a tpourist, even then my treatement in case of an emergencya would be formally compensated - both by agreements between states, and financial agreements between the local service and my health insurrance.
I take it that the release of the woman was no immediate and direct threat to her life. So why should the American community pay for her if she invests no financial return in form of taxes and does not pay for her treatement either?
Even if illegals "pay taxes" they don't make enough to actually pay taxes enough to contribute. Course that's true of the majority of the population. BTW, people from Mexico show up at the ER all the time, and sometimes affluent mexicans who fly here to go to the ER.
Life in a border State.
Yep, had it been an immediate emergency treatment, I would've obviously been sympathetic to the patient. But in this case she is in no position to complain.
Why would she want care in the US when she's a Mexican national, and Mexico has national healthcare?
Bet she was obnoxious to the staff.
At university hospitals, many would just get operated on since the Residents would want the case. The ones that get booted like this are usually a-holes.
My wife turned a guy in to get booted in just this way when she was a Resident, but only after he was a demanding a-hole to the nurses. Next thing he knew, it wasn't a nurse, but the social-worker informing him he could have his prostate cancer removed back home.
MothBalls
02-09-11, 01:44 AM
I'm gonna side with the hospital. Nobody likes a freeloader.
+1
Being the one who pays higher insurance premiums and taxes to pay for freeloaders, I say kick her to the curb. Is she going to pay for the 6 days she was there or are the rest of us paying for it?
That fact she was an illegal alien has nothing to do with it. There are plenty of US citizens who are refused treatment every day because they don't have the means or insurance to pay for a procedure and it doesn't make headlines.
Sorry for sounding like a bitter old man, but facts is facts and I get tired of hearing how bad we treat everyone else when we can't even take care of ourselves.
The border must be drawn, and this is not about receiving a poor treatment.
Penguin
02-10-11, 05:18 AM
Bet she was obnoxious to the staff.
At university hospitals, many would just get operated on since the Residents would want the case. The ones that get booted like this are usually a-holes.
My wife turned a guy in to get booted in just this way when she was a Resident, but only after he was a demanding a-hole to the nurses. Next thing he knew, it wasn't a nurse, but the social-worker informing him he could have his prostate cancer removed back home.
:hmmm: interesting aspect
bet she didn't know two important rules in life: never piss off a bartender and never piss off hospital staff :D
So you or your wife certainly can answer me this:
if her husband had a health insurance which covers his wife, would the hospital be required to treat her? Or would the insurance be void anyway, due to her illegal status?
Jimbuna
02-10-11, 07:22 AM
Non life threatening therefore nothing unethical IMHO.
Gargamel
02-10-11, 09:37 AM
:hmmm: interesting aspect
bet she didn't know two important rules in life: never piss off a bartender and never piss off hospital staff :D
True!
I used to make sure we took the road with the most potholes on the way to the hospital if you were a dick. (Note being a dick cause you are in pain, and being a dick in general are two different things. Former: Sympathy; latter: karma)
Armistead
02-10-11, 09:45 AM
One of my subs, a mexican, had a green card, but got life threatening cancer. We all knew he was sick before, finally went to the hospital. They told him to go back to Mexico and seek treatment. He went back and died.
Thousands of americans die from being treated not being able to pay, last thing I would worry about is someone illegal.
:hmmm: interesting aspect
bet she didn't know two important rules in life: never piss off a bartender and never piss off hospital staff :D
In general it is always good to be the "nice" patient in a medical office. Some subscribe to the "squeaky wheel" theory—and they do get treated, of course (and just as well as anyone else). They are hated by the staff and docs, however, and the staff will find ways to bump them to the end of the list for getting an appointment, and the docs will look for any excuse to "fire" them as patients.
My wife did a favor on call, and took a call from urgent care (a facility she is not on call for (she takes call only at the main hospital ER, not the UC facilities scattered around town). Was an 18 YO male with a 1mm stone. Not an emergency, she suggested pain meds while he passed the tiny stone. That was after 8pm at night. He gets an appt with her the next day at 2pm. That's amazingly fast given there are 1/2 the urologists in town that we need. She's booked weeks out for non-emergencies. The 18 YO's dad calls and starts yelling at the staff because they have to wait so long for an appt. he basically got the same day, and that's "too late" (she's on call, after all, so had emergency cases in the OR to take care of in the morning). The guy sis a big shot and is telling the scheduler he's a General. My wife's reaction is that she pays his salary, why does he think his rank means anything to her. The wimp (wife maintains young men are the least stoic patients by far, she said that there are 16YO girls giving birth with less whining than the guy with a 1mm stone) ended up not showing (wasting the time slot another patient would have liked to have had).
So you or your wife certainly can answer me this:
if her husband had a health insurance which covers his wife, would the hospital be required to treat her? Or would the insurance be void anyway, due to her illegal status?
SHe'd not know, frankly. She barely knows how the insurance works, much less legal status as it has nothing to do with how she treats patients. My guess is that an illegal is not covered by the insurance, regardless of marital status.
Penguin
02-10-11, 10:45 AM
True!
I used to make sure we took the road with the most potholes on the way to the hospital if you were a dick. (Note being a dick cause you are in pain, and being a dick in general are two different things. Former: Sympathy; latter: karma)
I am glad that medicine men know how to differ. I once threatened to beat up a doc because he didn't want to let me into the vehicle where my Frau was being treated. He reacted cool and explained himself to me calmly, so did the nearby officer - guess I wasn't the first guy with PTSD which they've seen...;)
. My wife's reaction is that she pays his salary, why does he think his rank means anything to her.
:har: answer of the year!
The wimp (wife maintains young men are the least stoic patients by far, she said that there are 16YO girls giving birth with less whining than the guy with a 1mm stone) ended up not showing (wasting the time slot another patient would have liked to have had).
agreed, what a whiner!
However, you should see me suffer, if my woman is around to take care of me :D
SHe'd not know, frankly. She barely knows how the insurance works, much less legal status as it has nothing to do with how she treats patients. My guess is that an illegal is not covered by the insurance, regardless of marital status.
ok, thanks. When I travel into the US, I have an extra medical insurance (30 bucks for a month). Europe and the USA do accept their insurances in a mutual agreement, but I don't want to step in with my own money first as - I would have to as a non resident - and it could take months till you get the money back.
So far nothing worse happened than ramming a rod into my stomach (not deep), which I treted myself, so I don't have first hand experience - and I have a visa ;)
I find it inhumane though that aspirine is not covered for the headaches that your beer causes...:D
CaptainHaplo
02-10-11, 10:54 AM
What I find amazing in this is that another hospital accepted her.....
What I find amazing in this is that another hospital accepted her.....
No kidding.
What sucks is that there is no way to write-off charity care from your taxes. If providers/hospitals could do this there would be an incentive to take some of these deadbeats.
FIREWALL
02-10-11, 02:53 PM
What I find amazing in this is that another hospital accepted her.....
What amazes me is she wasn't shipped back to Mexico by Immigration. :roll:
MaddogK
02-10-11, 03:00 PM
So sad, this teaching hospital threw away a perfectly good 'free' guinea pig. Imagine all the interns who wont have a chance to practice their pelvic exams on her while she's under. They also wont have a body to try new surgical techniques on.
Tragic !
mookiemookie
02-10-11, 03:10 PM
So sad, this teaching hospital threw away a perfectly good 'free' guinea pig. Imagine all the interns who wont have a chance to practice their pelvic exams on her while she's under. They also wont have a body to try new surgical techniques on.
Tragic !
What an absolutely disgusting comment.
Practice doing stuff like pelvic exams (here in the US) is done with paid volunteers. The guys get $25 a pop for prostate exams I think, and the women get rather a lot more for a pelvic. I think it was $100 when my wife was in med school. She said the med students were in teams of 3-4, and so the woman would get 4 exams, and get paid $400. The guy she got for a prostate exam she said was kinda creepy—he'd guide them since he'd done it so many times.
For Residents, any patient is a case they can check off. As I said above, I bet she or her hubby were demanding a-holes, otherwise I bet they'd have done the case (some resident would have, anyway).
UnderseaLcpl
02-10-11, 03:21 PM
What an absolutely disgusting comment.
I was kind of hoping it was a really funny joke that I just didn't get.
MaddogK
02-10-11, 03:23 PM
What an absolutely disgusting comment.
Whats so disgusting about it ? The hospital has to make up the money somehow, she probably wont be paying for the surgery, paid volunteers cost money. She's free to go back to her home country for treatment, I'm sure her countrymen won't have a problem footing the bill.
:sunny:
mookiemookie
02-10-11, 03:24 PM
I was kind of hoping it was a really funny joke that I just didn't get.
Rape and vivisection isn't really funny.
UnderseaLcpl
02-10-11, 03:28 PM
Rape and vivisection isn't really funny.
That's kind of my point. I thought it maybe it was an allegory for some kind of social commentary or.....I don't know. Like I said, I didn't get it.
Rape and vivisection isn't really funny.
Where was vivisection mentioned? Residents "practice" on everyone who gets surgery. Had her procedure been done at a teaching hospital, a Resident would have been scrubbed in at the very least, and likely would have done the case (maybe the chief, with a junior resident, and an attending nearby in case something went wrong). I remember when my wife was a 1st year surgery resident and she was the neurosurgeon on call for the only level 1 trauma center in the state of NM*. Talk about a bad day to get hit in the head... (she'd agree, she was utterly clueless, and it was her very first rotation—luckily she could call her dad (a retired brain surgeon) to ask for help if needed).
If you consider that statement to be about "vivisection" then stay away from University Hospitals :)
The pelvic exam thing was clearly a reference to the recent cases in NZ (?) that were on the news.
*I do mean "the" singular. She was only to call the attending when he was needed (and god help the resident who called him for what he'd think was "no good reason.")
Takeda Shingen
02-10-11, 03:31 PM
So sad, this teaching hospital threw away a perfectly good 'free' guinea pig. Imagine all the interns who wont have a chance to practice their pelvic exams on her while she's under. They also wont have a body to try new surgical techniques on.
Tragic !
Classy.
mookiemookie
02-10-11, 03:44 PM
Where was vivisection mentioned? Residents "practice" on everyone who gets surgery. Had her procedure been done at a teaching hospital, a Resident would have been scrubbed in at the very least, and likely would have done the case (maybe the chief, with a junior resident, and an attending nearby in case something went wrong). I remember when my wife was a 1st year surgery resident and she was the neurosurgeon on call for the only level 1 trauma center in the state of NM*. Talk about a bad day to get hit in the head... (she'd agree, she was utterly clueless, and it was her very first rotation—luckily she could call her dad (a retired brain surgeon) to ask for help if needed).
If you consider that statement to be about "vivisection" then stay away from University Hospitals :)
The pelvic exam thing was clearly a reference to the recent cases in NZ (?) that were on the news.
*I do mean "the" singular. She was only to call the attending when he was needed (and god help the resident who called him for what he'd think was "no good reason.")
Nice try.
Vivisection: the practice of performing operations on live animals for the purpose of experimentation or scientific research (used only by people who are opposed to such work).
Operating for practice is not "research," nor is it "experimentation."
Sorry that I don't have any panties to get in a bunch over a joke (even a joke that doesn't make much sense).
Jimbuna
02-11-11, 05:00 PM
So sad, this teaching hospital threw away a perfectly good 'free' guinea pig. Imagine all the interns who wont have a chance to practice their pelvic exams on her while she's under. They also wont have a body to try new surgical techniques on.
Tragic !
Oh FFS!!!!!!! :nope:
Classy.
Sorry Tom but I don't feel able to be as subtle :hmmm:
What I find amazing in this is that another hospital accepted her..... And the reasons why it may be many, contacts, relatives so the list goes on
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