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ABOUT $2 MILLION A MONTH: More illegal immigrants getting emergency treatment at UMC

'The cost to our taxpayers is astronomical,' commissioner says

There are now four more of them regularly making their way to the emergency room at University Medical Center. And doctors say the illegal immigrants coming in for dialysis treatment at University Medical Center are sicker than they were before, making their care even more expensive.

Six months after the Review-Journal revealed that 80 illegal immigrants with failing kidneys were running up about $2 million a month in bills for dialysis and other medical treatment at the only publicly supported hospital in Las Vegas, the situation for both patients and taxpayers only continues to worsen.

And despite promises by elected officials to look into the issue, there are few signs it will get better.

Federal laws that require hospitals to give emergency treatment to patients regardless of citizenship, combined with a lack of enforcement of immigration laws, make the problem insoluble right now, hospital and elected officials say.

Unable to receive the dialysis treatments that all American citizens qualify for under Medicare, illegal immigrants who need such treatment across the nation have increasingly turned to emergency rooms.

UMC officials, who project a budget deficit of more than $70 million for fiscal year 2010, say that encouraging illegal immigrants to return to their home countries for dialysis treatment hasn't worked.

With nothing being done to correct its situation with dialysis patients, UMC officials say taxpayers can expect to pay more to wait longer for their own emergency services. Nearly every day, about eight illegal immigrants show up at the UMC emergency room hoping to receive dialysis care, hospital officials say.

"The cost to our taxpayers is astronomical," said Lawrence Weekly, the Clark County commissioner who also serves as chairman of the UMC board of hospital trustees. "Many people are justifiably outraged. If this kind of thing goes on, we might have to close our doors. But we're governed by federal law on this issue so some way the federal government has to help us out. We just can't stand by and let people die in the streets. We wouldn't want that on our conscience."

An hour after Weekly made his observations, 76-year-old Jose Diaz Ruiz, who freely admits he is in the country illegally, sat inside UMC Thursday afternoon tethered to a dialysis machine. He sat in one of four dialysis chairs designed for hospital patients who suddenly become ill, and not for those in need of chronic care.

Under the Emergency Medical Treatment & Labor Act, which was enacted in 1986, any patient, regardless of citizenship, who shows up at an emergency department requesting an examination or treatment for a medical condition must be given an appropriate medical screening to determine whether there is an emergency. If there is, treatment must be provided.

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http://www.lvrj.com/news/more-illegal-immigrants-getting-emergency-tre
atment-at-umc-82579442.html

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