"Now just, just hold on a minute."
Posted on 01/10/2010 10:29:48 AM PST by opentalk
An international human rights organization is reviewing whether Grady Memorial Hospital violated the rights of patients of its now-closed outpatients dialysis clinic.
The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights has asked the U.S. government to respond to accusations by the patients' attorneys, who assert that the hospital violated the patients rights to life and well-being. The approximately 50 patients are virtually all poor illegal immigrants who paid nothing for their treatments.
The attorneys want the commission to advocate that the patients continue to receive treatment -- at the hospital's expense -- beyond Grady's Feb. 3 deadline to stop care.
The attorneys also want the patients to receive this care until their legal challenge works its way through the courts.
“We want to make this an international human rights issue,” said Lindsay Jones, an attorney who represents the patients. The commission, he said, has a “political stick.”
Grady closed the outpatient dialysis unit in October, citing financial stress. It has since provided treatments for the patients through a private clinic called Fresenius.
Grady has a contract with Fresenius for care until September, but the hospital wants the patients to find their own care before then.
Mario Williams, an advocate working with the patients, said Grady has a contractual obligation to provide the care through Sept. 1, or until the hospital formally ends its contract with Fresenius. The matter involves the U.S. government because Grady receives government funding and is overseen by The Fulton-DeKalb Hospital Authority, he said.
The commission has only begun its review. The body has no formal enforcement power in the U.S., but its involvement could move the case beyond the local courts.
"This is a good way of trying to bring some level of international pressure on the United States," Dr. Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na'im, a professor at Emory University's School of Law and an expert in human rights issues. "(The commission) can send delegations to investigate situations and it can generate publicity, which is helpful."
The patients' lawsuit against Grady Memorial Hospital Corp. was recently dismissed by a Fulton County Superior Court judge, but the plaintiffs have begun an appeals process to the state's highest court.
Grady said it continues to do everything it can to help the illegal immigrants find long-term care.
"In return, we have been hit with multiple lawsuits, which have been dismissed, and now this complaint," said Grady spokesman Matt Gove.
The Grady controversy raises larger issues regarding the role of safety net hospitals in providing care to illegal immigrants.
D.A. King, president of the Dustin Inman Society, a Cobb County-based group which opposes illegal immigration, said Grady has not violated the patients' human rights.
“Nobody’s human rights are being violated by us enforcing our immigration laws," he said. "Illegal aliens cost Americans a great deal of money through health care. ... Can Grady be expected to care for anyone who escapes capture at our border, without end?”
This “human rights” organization is an autonomous organ of the Organization of American States (OAS). American taxpayers provide the vast majority of its funding. The second greatest amount of its funding comes from the Mexican government, but we are actually paying to sue ourselves.
Sounds like they are implying that if you ever give something for free, you are obligated to continue to do so or be in violation of someone’s rights.
What a crock.
Maybe the UN will kick in some humanitarian funding. //sarc//
From our friends at NAFBPO;
Illegal Immigration – Mexico’s double talk – Do as I say, not as I do?
The bulk of illegal immigration into the US comes from Mexico, that is a fact. Some of the illegal immigrants come from Europe, Asia, Africa and Central and South America. Some of the ones that come from Central America come through Mexico. But what happens to those Illegal immigrants while on route to the US?
It is surprising to most to find out that even thought Mexico demands dignity and human rights for its citizens in the US regardless of the their legal status, the Mexican government does very little to preserve the human rights of illegal foreign nationals in their country and they admit that there is abuse. When these illegal immigrants pass through Mexico in their way to the United States, they are often robbed, extorted, raped, and in general mistreated by many people and that includes the police.[snip]http://mylifeasanalien.wordpress.com/2008/05/23/illegal-immigration-mexicos-double-talk-do-as-i-say-not-as-i-do/
Just wonder how much the lawyers are making on this deal? Possibly they could help arrange and pay for their clients’ continuing health care.
UN money is our money, too.
But in terms of reality, they can go stuff themselves. As can everyone trying to force the hospital to treat them.
Where ever this person is from, let his/her home government step up to the plate. If there is a moral imperative to provide dialysis to this person, surely the home country has more of one. The fact of the matter is this person would not receive care in their home country, and no one would have said boo about it. Here in this country illegally, and now we are morally obligated to pay for the care? I don’t think so.
Only if the hospital can negotiate payments from the poor illegal’s home countries first. I bet most of them came from places with socialized healthcare. Let them demonstrate their superiority by extending their compassion to their citizens living here.
It might help your feeling bad for the patients if you knew that approximately 85% + of dialysis patients are on dialysis due to their own actions.
Approx. 85% of dialysis patients are on dialysis due to untreated high blood pressure or diabetes, either of which can generally be treated for $4.00/month (self pay) or $0/month (getting medicaid to pay for it). Further, the vast majority (approx. 90%) of those with diabetes would not even have diabetes in the first place if they were not overweight. Many with high blood pressure would not have high blood pressure if they ate less salt and lost fat.
Just a few points to keep in mind.
The agenda seems to be pointing that way.
“We want to make this an international human rights issue,” said Lindsay Jones, an attorney who represents the patients. The commission, he said, has a “political stick.””
advocated by Interpol?
When you start to connect the dots, it is very troubling.
One of the doctors at our hospital told me the other day her patient, (an illegal alien from Mexico who needs dialysis) came to our country on the advice of her doctor in Mexico.
Her doctor in Mexico told her to come here because in Mexico, though they have socialized medicine, they do not treat End Stage Renal Disease as aggresively as we do here in the U.S. To be a dialysis patient in Mexico is a death sentence.
He advised her to go to the U.S.
"Now just, just hold on a minute."
Also keep in mind that Obama and the Democrat Party recently lifted the ban on HIV positive patients from entering the United States.
Now we can look forward to shelling out even more taxpayer dollars treating HIV patients that are not US citizens.
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