One woman miscarried in the restroom lobby of a Texas emergency room as front desk staff refused to admit her. Another woman learned that her fetus had no heartbeat at a Florida hospital, the day after a security guard turned her away from the facility. And in North Carolina, a woman gave birth in a car after an emergency room couldn’t offer an ultrasound. The baby later died.
The cases raise alarms about the state of emergency pregnancy care in the U.S., especially in states that enacted strict abortion laws and sparked confusion around the treatment doctors can provide.
“It is shocking, it’s absolutely shocking,” said Amelia Huntsberger, an OB/GYN in Oregon. “It is appalling that someone would show up to an emergency room and not receive care – this is inconceivable.”
It’s happened despite federal mandates that the women be treated.
Isn’t this a question of, damned if you do; damned if you don’t? Provide care and you go to jail. Don’t provide care and the woman dies. Medical professionals are not there to sacrifice themselves. If you make it impossible for them to provide care, they will just not do that. I know I would look for another job if that was me.
It’s federal law, they must provide care for people pregnant if they want fed funds.
It’s state law, if the baby dies they could be held accountable.
That’s fine. But if they want to abide by their state laws then they lose Medicare funding and the hospital shuts down.
The Houston clinic in the article has already stopped taking Medicare patients.