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(excerpt from) The Miami Herald
Fla. hospital accused of deporting patient
By LAURA WIDES-MUNOZ / Associated Press Writers
STUART, Fla. — The guardian of a Guatemalan man [Luis Alberto Jimenez] with serious brain damage is suing a South Florida hospital, alleging that the facility illegally deported the uninsured patient to his native country…
The trial opened quietly this week in the sleepy coastal town of Stuart, but the six-member jury’s verdict could influence how hospitals across the U.S. handle long-term care for illegal immigrants…
On Thursday, [the family’s] attorney William King showed e-mails documenting Martin Memorial Medical Center officials’ plans for returning the patient during the summer of 2003…
“It is not worth the risk to send him on a commercial flight,” wrote hospital attorney Rob Lord, at one point. “I can envision really bad publicity if things don’t go according to plan.”
Montejo accuses the hospital of secretly spiriting Jimenez back to Guatemala on a private plane accompanied by staff. Meanwhile, Montejo said the family’s attorney was frantically seeking an emergency order to halt the deportation and appealing an earlier ruling in favor of the move.
And, a different Miami Herald article here tells what has become of Luis Alberto Jimenez:
…An appeals court later ruled that Fennelly did not have authority to approve the hospital’s request, clearing the way for Gaspar to file a lawsuit against the hospital for false imprisonment.
By then Jimenez had been kicked out of two hospitals in Guatemala and had moved to a remote village, where his attorneys say he lives today with virtually no medical care…
Filed under: immigration, News, politics, social & economic justice, US Politics Tagged: | health care, immigration, Louis Jimenez, Luis Alberto Jimenez, Martin Memorial, South Florida
Will they get away with it? Are you kidding me? They should be given credit for saying enough is enough. If this guys LEGAL guardian was so concerned, he should have been stepping up to the plate and been paying for this ILLEGAL aliens treatment. But we dont hear about that happening do we? Why is it that the taxpayers should have to foot the bill for health care for these people who come here and take advantage of OUR system? You know damn good and well that if this happened to an AMERICAN citizen, we would be getting harrassed morning, noon, and night for payment. In closing, I applaud this hospital and I hope that a president is set for all other health care providers to follow.