Jury: Get thee back to Guatemala

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Posted to Media on Tue Jul 28, 2009 at 08:00:20 AM EST (promoted by port1080). RSS.

A jury in Florida has unanimously sided with a hospital in a civil case over an illegal immigrants return to Guatemala. The hospital had cared for a broke illegal immigrant named Luis Jimenez for three years after he was severely injured by a drunk driver. After not being able to find a nursing home that would take him for the rest of his life, due to his immigration status and inability to pay, the hospital instead chartered a $30,000 flight back home to Guatemala, where he resides today.  

Like many illegals, Mr. Jiminez was working as a day laborer. Unfortunately in 2000 a drunk driver crashed a stolen van into him. The insurance company paid out $30,000 in damages but he was left a paraplegic and left with the intelligence of a 4th grader due to neurological damage. Due to federal law that all hospitals accepting Medicare must take care of the indigent until a suitable discharge plan is arranged, and the fact that no facility would take an illegal immigrant who could not pay for lifelong care, Mr. Jiminez became a guest of the Martin Memorial Medical Center for three years, until in July 2003 the hospital, armed with a letter from the Guatamalan government that stated his homeland could take care of Mr. Jiminez, sent the patient home via $30,000 charter flight. The courts eventually ruled that Jiminez should not have been repatriated without his families permission, and that a local judge did not have the authority to okay his transfer, but it was too late. Jiminez was stuck in Guatamala in a one room shack in his mother's village.

His family sued the hospital, claiming it had "illegally detained" Jiminez to get him on the plane. The hospital says Jiminez wanted to go home and that the family should be happy their relative got $1.5 million in free care. The hospital and its trade group agreed, saying that by this point Martin Memorial had become little more than a dormitory: "Hospitals are not intended to become long-term housing," said Linda Quick, president of the South Florida Hospital & Healthcare Association. "The issue is that there are no long-term providers required to take people for whom they know they are not going to be paid."

The hospital was happy with the verdict, although it said something should be done at the federal level to prevent hard cases of disabled illegal immigrants draining millions or more from the system. "We have maintained all along that we acted correctly and, most importantly, in the best interests of Mr. Jimenez," the hospital CEO said, adding "This is not simply an issue facing Martin Memorial. It is a critical dilemma facing health care providers across Florida and across the United States."

Mr. Jiminez's attorneys had demanded cash to cover his lifetime expenses, plus legal damages. They have said they may appeal the jury's verdict.