Hospital to pay for leaving gunshot victim outside
May 1, 1999 2 minutes read
Hospital to pay for leaving gunshot victim outside
Federal complaint resulted in $40,000 agreement
The Chicago hospital that came under fire when emergency department staff refused to go outside the building to aid a young gunshot victim will pay $40,000 to settle a federal complaint, according to an agreement signed recently by hospital president John Blair.
Ravenswood Hospital Medical Center also agreed to place two quarter-page advertisements in the next year in the Sunday editions of the Chicago Sun-Times, reminding the community that the hospital will examine patients "without delay and regardless of their ability to pay."
It appears the settlement was only a small concession by the federal Department of Health and Human Services, which had investigated the hospital for violations of the 1986 Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA). The law requires all hospitals receiving Medi care payments to assess and stabilize emergency patients regardless of ability to pay.
Settlement is $10,000 off the maximum
EMTALA violations carry a penalty of up to $50,000, so the settlement represents savings of only $10,000 off the maximum fine. However, flagrant or repeat violations can result in expulsion from all federal health care programs, so deeming the violation "flagrant" would have made it possible for Ravenswood to receive a financial death sentence.
The Health Care Financing Administration recently approved the hospital’s revised policy on treating victims outside the hospital building after threatening to end its Medicare participation if the policy were not changed.
Ravenswood officials declined requests from Healthcare Risk Management to comment on the settlement.
The controversy began on May 16, when 15-year-old Christopher Sercye was shot less than a block away from the hospital. Following hospital policy, emergency department staff refused to go outside and help him. The boy’s friends and police officers pleaded with them to go outside, but they refused. Police eventually dragged him inside the hospital, but the boy soon died.
Ravenswood initially defended the policy as a necessary precaution for the protection of hospital staff, but then it quickly announced the policy had been changed to allow staff to go outside and render aid. The Health Care Financing Administration and the Illinois Department of Public Health had demanded that the policy be changed, and both approved the new policy on June 19.
System set up for reporting cases
The new policy requires hospital employees to call a special internal telephone number to report cases in which they believe someone on or near the hospital campus needs immediate medical assistance. An emergency department nurse or physician will then determine how best to treat the person, and there is no prohibition against staff going outside.
Ravenswood risk manager Janet Iron earlier told HRM that hospital attorneys were preparing for an expected lawsuit from the family of the gunshot victim. (For more on the controversy, see HRM, July 1998, pp. 89-90.)
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