Thread: Chicago: Mexican National in Coma to be Deported Today

Enough is enough. As sad as this person's situation is, let Mexico and or the patient's family pay for his care. Don't they have a sense of pride and financial responsibility? We have hospitals and trauma centers closing all over the nation due to the cost of caring for uninsured illegal aliens.

And we all know what happens to uninsured middle class Americans who have run up large medical bills; citizens who have worked hard for years lose assets and have liens slapped on them etc.

My insured son in law spent 3 days in a tiny emergency room because there were no rooms available. How can anyone expect the hospital to keep treating people who have little hope of recovery?
Why do the illegals always DEMAND special treatment? Where is the loving, caring family when they are needed most?

I bet some liberal judge somewhere will rule that the hospital can not "deport" comatose illegals. Healthcare is only for the poor. There is no room for working, insured American citizens.

[quote]Mr. Pantaleon’s sister, Soccoro Pantaleon asked, “How is it that this Hospital is treating my brother like a bag of trash that you just throw away?â€

They know that back in Mexico if they can't pay they will discharge this guy to the street and if the family won't take him somewhere else they will have an ambulance carry him off and dump him somewhere.

They need to take up the problem with the hospitals in their own nation.

W

Originally Posted by PhredE

Hmmm, ok...

This is in the least very imprecise writing or account of the situation, and, at worst, outright deception going on...

Chicago – The family of Francisco Pantaleon a 30 year old Mexican immigrant....

So is he legal or not???

[quote:7c2rrfnp]
... seriously injured undocumented patients can no longer pay for their medical treatment...

Ah, ok, of course he's not

And, the person that wrote this account purposefully, curiously, omitted any mention of why this guy is in this condition in the hospital - which, could have large implications or bearing on the outcome here.
Was he in a bad auto accident? Does he have chronic liver/kidney disease? Did he have cancer and come here specifically to get treatment he couldn't otherwise receive 'back home'? The WHY with this story is VERY important.

...I wonder if the hospital should bill the Mexican government or the family back home?

...And people wonder why our health care system is strained and hospitals are closing.... [/quote:7c2rrfnp]

hi PhredE

I have been following this on another board. According to yesterday's Chicago Tribune, the patient suffered severe hemorrhage in his brain. A person can be born with a malformation of the blood vessels in the brain that leaves an area weakened so that it forms a 'balloon' on the artery. They can lead a normal life with no symptoms then suddenly collapse because this ballooned area has burst. It sounds likethat is what happened to this man. This is just a (semi) educated guess on my part.
What concerns me is that this man is very young and if all his other organs are in good shape, he could survive for a long time in spite of being severely brain damaged. He could easily run up a very, very high bill over the years. He needs to be returned to Mexico. Since he is a Mexican citizen, Mexico needs to assume responsibility for his care.

[quote="millere"][quote="fedupinwaukegan"]

Julie Santos of LULAC National Immigrant Affairs Commission,â€

[quote="jamesw62"][quote="millere"][quote="fedupinwaukegan"]

Julie Santos of LULAC National Immigrant Affairs Commission,â€

Keep an eye out for Esther Cepeda. She is a Chicago writer who seems to 'get it.' Below is what she had to say about this case. It is very sad the wife's wishes are being over-looked here. And that indeed this gentleman is a pawn...


When family wishes and an immigration poster-child photo-op collide

"600 Words by Esther J. Cepeda"

If you missed it, about two weeks ago the New York Times featured on its front-page a story about how U.S. hospitals deal with illegal immigrant patients beset by long-term illnesses.

Luis Alberto Jimenez, a Guatemalan native with a traumatic brain injury who had been treated for several years in a Florida hospital at a cost of over 1.5 million dollars was profiled.

At issue was the state court order (that later was declared invalid) which enabled Martin Memorial Hospital to lease an air ambulance for $30,000 to "forcibly" return Mr. Jimenez to Guatemala.

Chicago now has its very own Jimenez.

More to the point: at issue is a thirty-year-old Mexican man named Francisco Pantaleon who, no less tragically, suffered a "severe cerebral hemmorage," according to Sherry McGuiness, the University of Illinois at Chicago Medical Center’s spokesperson. He was to be transferred to a hospital in Acapulco (at the UIC’s expense) until some disgruntled family members and activists stepped in.

The story, reported in today’s Chicago Tribune and Hoy newspapers goes thusly: father of two with no health insurance who has been living in U.S. illegally for eleven years has a severe brain hemorrhage in mid-July, goes to Alexian Brothers Hospital falls into a coma, and must be transferred to the UIC Medical Center for long-term care.

UIC, realizing there’s little hope for recovery, arranges – with Mr. Pantaleon’s family’s permission – to pay for him to be returned to Mexico where he can live out the rest of his days.

Mr. Pantaleon’s sister freaks out and unleashes the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) on the hospital. They, gleefully waving the New York Times piece, get Chicago’s Mexican Consulate to shame UIC into halting the transfer on the grounds that UIC failed to inform the Consulate of their plans to move the patient back to his country of origin.

Drumroll please: despite the fact that Mr. Pantaleon’s wife has been toiling for over a month to get him back home to Mexico, according to her comments to Hoy newspaper.

In the printed version of the Trib’s story, Dr. William Chamberlin, UIC’s Chief Medical Officer, said: "We have worked with the individual who has had primary decision-making responsibility for the patient" and had that person’s full consent.

I don’t dispute the following: 1) this is a sad story. And 2) there’s no question that legal or illegal, no immigrant should be denied due process when it comes to being returned to their home country.

But: we can’t even afford to adequately care for U.S. Citizens! And: his wife wants him home!

Forget the "hospital as ICE agent" straw man argument, the real crime here is being perpetrated by the leftist, illegal-immigrants-should-do-as-they-please, we’re-in-your-face-so-there! activists who would go so far as to deny this man his dignity by allowing a photographer to take his picture in a most undignified state while denying his wife the right to care for her husband at home.

Howard Peters, a senior VP at the Illinois Hospital Association was quoted in the Trib saying that "the family ought to be grateful" that UIC found a facility in Mexico willing to take Mr. Pantaleon and volunteered to foot the bill for his transfer.

As far as I can see, in his comatose state Mr. Panaleon is a pawn, being victimized by the very people who claim to be fighting for the rights of illegal immigrants such as himself.

His family truly ought to be grateful he’s received such top-notch care so far. And I believe that once Mr. Pantaleon returns to his tierra, his wife will finally see him, feel his warm skin, talk to him and express her gratitude quietly - and far out of the glare of the TV camera’s lights.

http://www.600words.com/2008/08/when-family-wis.html

Here is one of the articles Esther (above) referred to. At the link is the sad picture that Esther referred to as well.


Undocumented immigrant in coma set to be returned to Mexico
Triage blog: Sending sick undocumented immigrants back home

By Judith Graham and Deanese Williams-Harris | Chicago Tribune reporter
August 20, 2008

Francisco Pantaleon

Francisco Pantaleon's relatives are trying to prevent the undocumented immigrant, who is in a coma, from being returned to Mexico. (Family photo)

A 30-year-old Mexican man in a coma at the University of Illinois Medical Center at Chicago has ignited a dispute over a little-known practice at hospitals—sending medically needy undocumented immigrants back to their countries of origin.

The disagreement revolves around Francisco Pantaleon, who arrived in the U.S. 11 years ago and suffered a severe brain hemorrhage in mid-July, according to his sister Socorro. A father of two, Pantaleon worked at a carwash and has no health insurance, she said.

The medical center believes there is "little hope for recovery," according to a statement released Tuesday, and officials arranged for Pantaleon to be transferred to a hospital in Acapulco at UIC's expense. An official said his immediate family consented to the move.

But Pantaleon's sister and cousin are protesting that arrangement and have retained lawyers in hopes of preventing it. "This is an injustice," said his sister, who worries that Pantaleon won't survive the trip or find adequate care in Mexico.

Related links

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The dispute touches on two hot-button issues, Immigration and health care. With the exception of pregnant women some children and people in medical emergencies, illegal immigrants generally have no right to health care in the U.S. But access to long-term care—the kind of services Pantaleon appears to need—is not guaranteed even if the patients are U.S. citizens, with the exception of the very poor.

Legally, hospitals are bound to stabilize all patients in an emergency, regardless of their nationality or insurance status. Afterward they are required to arrange to transfer patients to settings where they can receive adequate care, said Doreena Wong, staff attorney for the National Health Law Program. The difficulty is, nursing homes in Chicago usually will not serve undocumented immigrants who don't have health insurance or any means to pay for care.

"We can't arrange long-term care here, so we try to do the best we can in the country of origin," said Dr. William Chamberlin, chief medical officer at UIC Medical Center.

That can be problematic, said Sonal Ambegaokar, health policy attorney at the National Immigrant Law Center. "The question is, is the hospital acting as an Immigration agent in effect by deporting this patient?" she said. In such cases, she suggests, immigrants may be denied due process.

"It's important to make sure that hospitals aren't permitted to dump patients on an international level when they can't do it on a local level," said James Geraghty, a Chicago lawyer working with Pantaleon's sister and cousin.

For hospitals, the crucial issue is limited resources. "Hospitals don't have the financial resources to meet all of the acute care needs [of patients without insurance], let alone take on all the chronic care needs that present with patients like this," Chamberlin said.

Members of Pantaleon's family appealed to the Mexican Consulate for help last week, said Ioana Navarrete, consul for the protection department.

"There were certain legal procedures that the hospital should have followed that they bypassed," she said, noting that the medical center failed to inform the consulate of plans to move Pantaleon, a Mexican citizen.

Chamberlin said hospital officials did not know that was necessary.

"We have worked with the individual who has had primary decision-making responsibility for the patient" and had that person's full consent, he said.

Chamberlin said he couldn't discuss the details further because the hospital hadn't received permission to relax privacy protections.

Efforts to reach Pantaleon's wife for comment were unsuccessful.

Howard Peters, senior vice president of government relations at the Illinois Hospital Association, said "the family ought to be grateful" that UIC found a facility in Mexico willing to take Pantaleon and volunteered to pay for the trip.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/ ... 7823.story

Mr. Pantaleon’s sister freaks out and unleashes the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) on the hospital. They, gleefully waving the New York Times piece, get Chicago’s Mexican Consulate to shame UIC into halting the transfer on the grounds that UIC failed to inform the Consulate of their plans to move the patient back to his country of origin.

Since when did U.S. hospitals have to start checking with the mejican consulate for their opinion???