Reply #163: I am so weary of the argument that hospitals have to provide life saving treatment

[laughingliberal]

regardless of ability to pay. Emergency rooms are required only to 'stabilize' a patient. If they can't find evidence the person is in immediate danger of death, they dump them right back out that door with a note on the chart. I can't begin to count the number of patients, without insurance, who were turned loose by an emergency room after going in for chest pain. The ER did an EKG and sent them home. When I was in nursing school it was known that an EKG will not necessarily show the damage of a heart attack for up to 24 hours. The protocol was: admit the patient on continuous monitoring; draw cardiac enzymes every 8 hours for 24 hours. But those without insurance are given a perfunctory EKG which shows no damage and cardiac enzymes are drawn (which will likely not elevate for several hours after the heart attack) and the patient is sent home with a diagnosis of GI disturbance. Some have been lucky enough to live for a few days and return when the damage is obvious and get some help but many die before they can return.

With this in mind, I'm wondering how a woman whose life is in danger due to a pregnancy is going to get help through an emergency room. Perhaps if she shows up just at the right time (like while she's in the process of bleeding to death or when her blood pressure skyrockets from toxemia) they might stabilize her but by then it will probably be too late in the pregnancy to terminate. And all that is just IF she manages to get there while in a life threatening emergency and before she is deceased.