The Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act of 1986 was a legislation that was able to save lives. This is because prior to this Act, there were no rights for people to receive emergency care in a life-threatening situation. After EMTALA was passed, patients who visited the emergency department at hospitals were able to receive care regardless if they had the proof of funding their services. This legislation endorsed health care as a right and not a privilege in the United States. Without EMTALA, there was no justice for the basic human right to receive health care in a life-threatening situation because most of these patients were left to die while being transferred to a public hospital. It mandates the following:
• That all patients seeking care in an emergency department be evaluated by a competent clinical professional, and if found to have a condition requiring emergency care must be treated until stabilized before any transfer. For women in active labor, the hospital must deliver the baby unless the institution is not equipped to do so (as in the case of a high-risk pregnancy and the lack of a neonatal ICU).
• The hospital to which a stabilized patient (or one who must be transferred because the originating hospital does not have the necessary services or personnel) is to be sent must agree to accept the patient.
• The patient must consent to the transfer, if possible.
• Adequate medical records must accompany the transferred patient (Friedman, 2011).
This law did change everything. The reason why we are still facing its ramifications to this day is that the amount of procedures and treatments needed in order to stabilize a patient is incredibly costly. The costs to stabilize a patient in the Emergency Department for those who are uninsured could potentially lead a hospital to bankruptcy. To this day, private hospitals are struggling to support their facility in the best ways possible. Hospitals may be fined up to $25,000 (if fewer than 100 beds) or $50,000 per violation. Physicians may be fined up to $50,000. Fines totaling $5.6 million on 194 hospitals and 19 physicians over the period from 1995-2000. Aside from EMTALA, there has been other legislation that hospitals had to adapt to that lead to financial struggles such as the mandatory requirement of EHR.
Luckily a nonprofit organization called Planned Parenthood, established in 1916, has been fighting for reproductive rights and care. Planned Parenthood has reached 11 million people in vital reproductive health care and reproductive education. This nonprofit was operating before EMTALA was passed through legislation. Planned Parenthood has been providing reproductive care for men and women when their local private hospitals would not take their pleading calls without financial proof. Some pregnant women were seen giving birth outside hospitals before medical care was addressed as a political issue to provide a basic human right.
Although we've come a long way, Planned Parenthood has stood by us when the government never did. Planned Parenthood deserves to stand with us all to this day. Planned Parenthood can continue to help in areas the current healthcare system lacks in regards to the reproductive fields in medicine. With the exponentially growing population, we should be grateful for nonprofit organizations like Planned Parenthood.
In due time, universal healthcare will endorse our basic human right for a healthy life. Legislation is currently underway to create a single-payer healthcare system for the state of New York under the New York Health Act. Bernie Sanders is proposing his Medicare for All bill for the entire nation. The time has come to no longer treat healthcare as a business and to treat it as it is: a basic human right.
