U.S. Hospitals ship comatose patients to foreign countries to dump them.

Quote :

New Jersey man falls into coma, wakes up in Poland
Yahoo News


Sixty-nine-year-old Wladyslaw Haniszewski had lived in the U.S. for about 30 years. But when the New Jersey resident fell into a coma he awoke to find himself in his native country of Poland.

The New York Daily News reports that Haniszewski fell victim to a growing phenomenon in which uninsured immigrants are deported by U.S. hospitals that do not want to get stuck paying for their treatment.

“Imagine being carted around like a sack of potatoes," said Polish Consul General Ewa Junczyk-Ziomecka, who argues that Haniszewski was placed on a chartered flight while still unconscious, never giving his consent to being shipped to a hospital in a country he had not lived in for decades.

The practice of medical repatriation has reportedly become increasingly common. One immigration advocacy group told The Associated Press in April that it has documented at least 800 cases of individuals being deported from hospitals without consent over the past six years in at least 15 states. However, the actual number is believed to be much higher because of the significant number of cases that go unreported.

"It really is a Catch-22 for us," Dr. Mark Purtle, vice president of Medical Affairs for Iowa Health System, said at the time. "This is the area that the federal government, the state, everybody says we're not paying for the undocumented."

There is an ongoing debate over the legality and morality of medical repatriation. Under U.S. law, hospitals are required to gain patient consent, from either the individual directly or an immediate family member, before having the individual deported. The federal government is not directly involved in the cases and does not pay for the cost of deportation. In April, "Colbert Report" host Stephen Colbert weighed in on the controversy, saying sarcastically, "It's totally unregulated, so hospitals avoid all the red tape usually involved in shipping the unconscious."

Haniszewski has reportedly fallen on hard times in recent years. Friends tell the Daily News that he recently lost his apartment and job, and was forced to relocate to a shelter.

The Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Brunswick is defending its actions, saying it took the necessary precautions before placing Haniszewski on an outbound flight.

“The individual was informed regarding his discharge plan and care,” said hospital spokesman Peter Haigney. “As the hospital's understanding of the facts differs from the published reports, we are conducting a thorough review of the procedures and communications surrounding this gentleman's care.”

However, Junczyk-Ziomecka contests the theory that Haniszewski consented to the move or was even informed of the decision. After all, he was still in a coma when he arrived in Poland and even now is unable to verbally communicate with hospital staff. He’s also estranged from his two daughters, who live in Poland.

"He can smile from time to time, but he is unable to communicate," Junczyk-Ziomecka told the Daily News.

“It’s an incredibly disturbing case,” Lori Nessel, director of the Center for Social Justice at Seton Hall University School of Law, told the Daily News. “This kind of action seems clearly illegal and also not ethical, but it’s hard to bring a legal action.”

This pisses me off... big time.

How in hell can the hospitals say that the patients were aware of (and consented to) these moves?

The patients were COMATOSE, for God sakes!!!

If I remember correctly, the hospital AND legal system interpret a comatose patient would give consent IF he was able to give it.

Jake92 wrote:

If I remember correctly, the hospital AND legal system interpret a comatose patient would give consent IF he was able to give it.  

You're talking about implied consent, Jake, and that applies only in the case of acute emergent situations, such as providing care for a person who is knocked unconscious in a car accident.

Eric, dumping of uninsured patients of any type is wrong. I've seen it happen in one way or another more times than I can count. It disgusts me. I'd best not say any more than that.

As an EMT, we were taught that Implied Consent was consent TO TREAT if someone was unconscious.

It didn't mean that there was consent to ship the patient out of the damn country.  It takes cojones to ship a patient out of the country... and get away with it. 

This is incredible!

I think it's wrong too, but who will pay the bills for the ILLEGALS that spend years in hospitals and nursing homes. Bill the country they are from and the lawyers will make fortunes trying to collect it while others will make fortunes defending the country the illegal came from..

No one said this guy (in the article) was illegally here.  He has been in the US for 30 years... most likely paying taxes and such. 

Jake, unless you are Native American, you are a product of immigrants.  We are all mostly descended from immigrants, and very few had money when they got here.