Woodstock Memorial Hospital has agreed to pay the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services a $20,000 penalty after the agency said it turned a pregnant woman away from its emergency room in November 1996.
The federal agency found the hospital had violated the 1986 Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, intended to prevent hospitals from denying emergency medical care to poor patients, specifically women in labor.
Federal and state regulators found that the hospital violated two parts of the act, officials said: The woman did not get a screening to make sure she wasn’t in immediate medical danger before she was transferred; and Woodstock staff failed to alert the hospital she was being referred to, Harvard Memorial Hospital.
A screening “is something that’s supposed to be done for all patients and in this case, obviously, it wasn’t,” said Cheryl Harris, manager of the Chicago office of the Health Care Finance Administration, an arm of the health and human services agency.
Woodstock Memorial Hospital agreed to the settlement, but admitted no wrongdoing. The hospital also has rewritten some of its emergency room policies. The Department of Health and Human Services requires a hospital found in violation to institute a corrective plan. State investigators found Woodstock Memorial had done so.
Hospital spokesman Bill Clow declined to comment on the penalty, other than to say the hospital believes in the spirit of the federal prohibitions against patient dumping.
