One of the few rights to healthcare that everyone has in the US is the ability to receive treatment in the emergency room. In the emergency room, doctors are obligated to stabilize patients if their future health or life is at serious risk.
The right guaranteed by the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, also known as Emtala, was created to address a practice called “patient dumping.” This practice involved transferring patients who couldn’t afford to pay from private hospitals to public hospitals, even in emergency situations.
“There were many reasons it was put into effect,” explained Sara Rosenbaum, a professor of health law at George Washington University’s Milken Institute of Public Health. She is also an attorney who played a role in creating the Emtala law.
“One reason was that people were leaving behind patients who didn’t have insurance. Another reason, which was mentioned in the congressional record, was pregnant women being denied care,” she explained.
Even today, patients are still being turned away and denied care. Recent cases of hospitals violating Emtala show this. However, the mistreatment of pregnant women before the law was passed was particularly shocking.
“I recall a young woman who was in labor and was transferred to Parkland Hospital in Dallas from another hospital, which was affiliated with a religious organization,” Dr. Rob J Anderson stated in a recorded oral history from 2014. At the time, Anderson was responsible for overseeing the emergency room at the hospital. She expressed her happiness that they would still visit her despite her husband losing his job. In response, they closed her legs, inserted an IV, and sent her to Parkland.
Also Read: Florida City Has the Most Stressful Residents as Compared to Others
The woman was in an advanced stage of labor and gave birth in the hallway of Parkland. Anderson was very angry, so he went to a different hospital and invited the doctor to “go outside,” which means to fight. “I was very angry about it,” he said.
This is about a 40-year-old law that is the only universal guarantee of healthcare Americans have. – Sara Rosenbaum
Private hospitals were not only abandoning pregnant women, but also other groups. In the same oral history, Anderson tells a story about a cab driver who brought a man to the emergency room. The man had been stabbed, and the knife was moving up and down as he breathed. The cab also had an IV from another hospital hanging on its coat hook.
In the next week, the supreme court will decide whether to overturn a law from 1986 that was created to protect pregnant women, their ability to have children in the future, and their children. This law is being challenged by state abortion bans that almost completely prohibit abortion and directly contradict the provisions of the 1986 law. The case is a result of Republican-led states’ desire to have complete control over abortion regulation.
To understand why the anti-abortion movement started focusing on Emtala, it’s helpful to look at how the law was created in America’s complex healthcare system, which is mostly privately run.
“This is about a law that has been in place for 40 years and is the only guarantee of healthcare that all Americans have,” said Rosenbaum. If the supreme court rules in favor of anti-abortion states, it could lead to a situation where certain states, driven by a culture war agenda, restrict access to emergency rooms.
Emtala, which was signed into law by Ronald Reagan, required hospitals to treat emergency patients. If hospitals didn’t comply, they could lose funding from Medicare. Medicare is a health insurance program for older people, and Medicaid is a similar program. These programs often provide more than half of the money that hospitals receive.
Leave a Reply