Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act, Essay Example

 What are the legal (tort) issues that could be raised by attorneys for the patient?

Hospitals are first and foremost directed to have the responsibility to provide the most needed medical assistance to all patients that they have regardless of race, social status or the ability to pay. This is what EMTALA principle is relatively dependent upon. EMTALA basically applies to hospitals accepting payment from government healthcare assistance agencies that are directed to provide financial response to the need of civilians who may not have the rightful capability to pay for the hospital bills that they are expected to take into consideration. Hospitals that have been accounted to respond to this EMTALA principle are given specific special care facilities that are directed to assist emergency cases of patients. Those other establishments that do not have such facilities can immediately refer them to nearby hospitals who have the same equipment’s. Nevertheless, this is the only exception made. Hospitals are expected to keep their patients in custody until they are well. Special conditions are given to those who are mentally incapacitated since they have more risks of being subjected to public danger and are to have a hard time finding a shelter institution that would take them in. Hence, in a way, the legal measure that must be carried into consideration in line with this case is the responsibility that the hospital has on its patients as guided by EMTALA principles on hospital care ethics.

What are the ethical issues that this situation raises?

Hospitals are expected to make extensive adjustments to accommodate patients as they come into their premises. Relatively though, there are instances when accepting too many patients [who at some point have no capability of paying their bills] hurt the funding budget of the said healthcare institutions. The help coming from EMTALA guided agencies are at some point not enough to support such needs. As Kayhan Parsi (2007) quotes the AMA Principle: “…stating… that a physician may choose whom he or she wishes to treat. Opinion 9.12 of the Code, however, states that ” physicians who offer their services to the public may not decline to accept patients because of race, color, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, or any other basis that would constitute invidious discrimination” [6]. True, the choices then need to be made, but the dumping of patients is not one of the choices given. It is the essentially important ethical responsibility of hospitals to provide extensive watchful consideration on their patients’ needs hence readjusting their resources to fit the growing need of assistance between all the individuals they hope to care for.

Reference:

Parsi, Kayhan. (2007). Duty to Treat: Conscience and Pluralism. Virtual Mentor. May 2007, Volume 9, Number 5: 362-364.

Scherl DJ, Macht LB (September 1979). “Deinstitutionalization in the absence of consensus” . Hosp Community Psychiatry 30 (9): 599–604.