Patient Deportation Case Highlights Issues with Illegal Alien Healthcare

Like Caplan, Robitaille says he's not optimistic that the issue will be addressed soon. "This is an opportunity for leaders at the state and federal levels to find a solution, rather than relying on individual healthcare providers to develop solutions on a case-by-case basis," he says. "Unfortunately, none of the proposed national healthcare reform bills currently being debated in Washington address the issue of how to adequately provide healthcare for undocumented immigrants in a way that is fair and equitable to everyone involved."

Caplan says that, even though Martin Memorial was acting out of financial interest when it repatriated Jimenez, the hospital had fulfilled its ethical obligation to the Guatemalan with the care he'd received for nearly three years.

"When it is an emergency you have to be humane and do what you can do. But once they are stabilized and once they are beyond what the medicine can do, I don't have a problem with them returning him to Guatemala," Caplan says. "If there were more that could be done, they have a duty, even though he is not a paying person, to try and get him care that might help him regain function. But there was no indication that was the case."

"To put it bluntly, there is a difference between transferring someone back home and dumping him back home," he says. "From what I saw in the court discussion, they were closer to transferring than they were to dumping."