Posted on 10/21/2014 12:01:39 PM PDT by justlittleoleme
(CNSNews.com) - The Virginia Hospital Center—which is less than seven miles from the White House and is rated one of the nation’s Top 100 hospitals—turned away a suspected Ebola patient on Friday without examining her and without explaining to the fire department that brought her to the hospital in an ambulance why they would not admit her, according to the Arlington County Fire Department.
The department estimates that its ambulance waited outside the Virginia Hospital Center for 20 minutes before being directed to Inova Fairfax Hospital, Lt. Sarah-Maria Marchegiani, a spokesperson for the Arlington County Fire Department told CNSNews.com.
The patient in question, it turned out, did not have Ebola.
In an Oct. 3 story that the Virginia Hospital Center linked to its own website, WUSA Channel 9 reported that the hospital suggested it was prepared to deal with an Ebola case.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnsnews.com ...
EMTALA violation.
Obama didn’t have his ObamaCare paid up ???
That was Moochelle’s job out in Chicago.
This is primitive, this would have shocked us back when we thought we were advanced, now it looks like we are slipping into darkness.
DC hospital? Must be racism.
Let me guess... the hospital has a lot of patients that are simply too good to even possibly risk contact with Ebola.
Our betters, ya know.
I said the same thing when the Chocolate drop got elected
They probably heard that Texas Presbyterian turned into a ghost hospital after accepting an ebola patient.
Except that I didn’t mean a racial reference.
DC area, but not in DC. I’ve had work done on me in that hospital; it’s excellent.
So is Inova Fairfax.
And Inova has the advantage of not being located within the boundaries of that foul city.
After seeing what happened in Texas, I expect a lot of hospitals to do the same. Why put all you other patients and your staff at risk-not to mention the negative financial impact.
The 4 special treatment centers are really the only ones that are truly prepared to handle this disease, and at least you won’t have a bunch of potential cases flying, cruising, and visiting retail shops.
Oh yeah, the hospitals are ready for this, just like CDC said. You betcha.
it would be a lot cheaper to pay the EMTALA fine than admit.
And by diverting one Ebola case elsewhere, she could earn her $317k keep and then some for the U of C Hospital.
I’m sure that whether it was an EMTALA violation is a small concern here (although it almost certainly was an infraction). The Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act requires that emergency rooms provide stabilizing treatment regardless of ability to pay to anybody that shows up for care, or face a $10,000 fine for each infraction. If a hospital made a general practice of violating EMTALA, it could easily bankrupt that hospital in fines. Most hospitals have EMTALA monitors to ensure that that line isn’t crossed and most ER Docs and staff have tons of EMTALA training.
On the one hand, what’s a 10K fine when you consider the economic losses at Presby?
There is the possible PR harm of turning the patient away, as evidenced by this article. Again, whatever PR economic hit involved, an EMTALA fine is the least of concerns.
My guess is they purposely weighed the economic harm of admitting the patient verses turning them away and decided that it was in their best interest to turn the patient away. EMTALA probably factored little into the equation because the other competing interests carry such a larger financial hit.
EMTALA is designed to curtail general practices with a fine for each potential violation. When any ONE patient can cause such a huge disruption to operations, that fine is paltry by comparison.
Even if you look at the ethics of it, it’s not so cut and dried as you would think on first glance. It’s not like the patient isn’t going to be treated somewhere, and EBOLA isn’t like a heart attack where minutes make a difference (time is muscle, as we say).
No. Obviously somebody is going to treat that patient, even if they ended up at Bethesda a few hours later. This hospital did have the advantage of having a major “Ebola hospital” within decent reach.
So, the hospital is considering a few hour delay in the treatment of an illness that takes place over days versus huge potential economic losses of admitting that patient. Remember that Duncan will likely cost Presby more than $1 Billion dollars in economic harm before it’s done.
It may sound tacky or morally wrong for the hospital to risk a small PR hit (the current article) to avoid a much larger hit (A potential Presby-level event), but there you go.
1. It’s not black and white, and more and more institutions will be forced to come to terms with the same decisions if Ebola continues to be a problem.
2. EMTALA is the least concern here.
3. A hospital is a business. Yes, the business is saving lives, but it’s not a suicide pact. Considering that Ebola has shown itself to be a hospital killer as well as a human killer, it’s not unreasonable for the hospital to engage in self-preservation.
4. I’m not saying this is right, there are large moral issues here. I’m just saying that it’s not so cut and dried. More important, I’m saying that if the disease takes any kind of hold here, expect more and more hospitals to make similar decisions. EMTALA is a minor player here.
I would think that is some kind of issue, turning someone away in need of medical care.........
Thanks for info. I suspected it was against the law for a hospital to turn away a patient in need of emergency care.
But, I can see from the hospital point of view, better to pay the fines involved, if they are found to have violated a law, rather than face what comes with a hospital having Ebola patients.
I’d expect it would be better PR to send ebola suspects down the road. Not sure if I would have kept my appointment there this week if they had not.
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