Feds rarely punish hospitals for turning away pregnant patients

As the pregnant woman’s contractions rolled in every two minutes, staff at Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, dispatched an ambulance to send her elsewhere.

Just two minutes later, she gave birth to a 6-pound baby girl in the cab of the ambulance down the road from the 900-bed hospital.

The incident, government investigators concluded last year, was a violation of a <a class=«Link AnClick-LinkEnhancement» data-gtm-enhancement-style=«LinkEnhancementA» href=«https://apnews.com/Yet,» the hospital has never been penalized for that incident or its other violations of law over years. few emergency rooms ever are. target="_blank" rel=«noopener»>federal law

that requires emergency rooms to stabilize patients in medical distress before discharging or transferring them.

Yet, Our Lady of the Lake has never been been penalized for that incident or any of its other violations of the law. Few emergency rooms ever are.

Just a dozen hospitals have been fined for refusing to treat patients — pregnant or not — over the past two years, an Associated Press analysis of civil monetary penalties issued by the U.S. Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General found. It took years for the government to decide those penalties.

Not one of the more than 100 emergency rooms that mistreated or turned away pregnant women since 2022, when the Biden administration pledged to toughen enforcement of the law, has been fined.

“What little we know about the investigations have yielded very rare results,” said Sara Rosenbaum, a George Washington University health law and policy professor.

At Our Lady of the Lake, which did not provide comment for this article, inspectors determined the emergency room’s staff members