Feds rarely punish hospitals for turning away pregnant patients
Source: Associated Press
Feds rarely punish hospitals for turning away pregnant patients
By AMANDA SEITZ
Updated 11:04 AM EDT, September 13, 2024
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The incident, government investigators concluded last year, was a violation of a federal law that requires emergency rooms to stabilize patients in medical distress before discharging or transferring them.
Yet, Our Lady of the Lake has never been been penalized for that incident or any of its other violations of the law. Few emergency rooms ever are.
Just a dozen hospitals have been fined for refusing to treat patients pregnant or not over the past two years, an Associated Press analysis of civil monetary penalties issued by the U.S. Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General found. It took years for the government to decide those penalties.
Not one of the more than 100 emergency rooms that mistreated or turned away pregnant women since 2022, when the Biden administration pledged to toughen enforcement of the law, has been fined.
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Read more: https://apnews.com/article/hospitals-patient-dumping-pregnancies-6a0fa0a16a42e4ceb4c8c14c5cd2c0f5
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flying_wahini
(7,714 posts)getagrip_already
(16,916 posts)Biden cant direct them to prosecute a specific entity.
He can only direct them in general terms, like we need to increase enforcement of a specific law.
How or if that is done is up to garland.
cbabe
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