Thread: Immigrants Lose Lawsuit Against Atlanta Hospital

December 16, 2009
Immigrants Lose Lawsuit Against Atlanta Hospital
By KEVIN SACK

ATLANTA — Efforts to force the public hospital here to continue providing free dialysis treatment to a group of immigrants, most of them illegal, suffered a setback on Tuesday when a judge dismissed a lawsuit challenging the recent closing of the hospital’s outpatient renal clinic.

A lawyer for the roughly 50 patients said he would appeal. But the ruling for Grady Memorial Hospital brings the patients closer to a Jan. 3 deadline for finding new sources of the life-sustaining dialysis treatment.

When the struggling hospital closed the clinic for fiscal reasons in early October, it agreed to pay for three months of dialysis for the patients at private clinics, either in the United States or in their home countries. That reprieve has nearly expired, and most of the patients have not taken steps to seek treatment elsewhere.

A hospital spokesman disclosed Tuesday that three of the patients had died since the clinic’s closing, two of them in Mexico and one in Atlanta. None of the deaths, he said, appeared related to inadequate access to dialysis.

“Based on the best information that we have, the patients’ deaths were not caused by a lack of dialysis care but by other health issues,â€

Get the New York Times to pay for it! Get one of the New York Times owners/financiers, Carlos Slim, one of the richest men in the world, 3rd richest in fact, a Mexican national, to donate some money to the renal clinics in Mexico so they can provide dialysis for his fellow citizens and he can send a pile to Honduras too and pay for their treatment as well.

What kind of a cheap sick piece of crap are you Carlos? You're a multi-billionaire owning a US newspaper whining about dialysis treatments in the US for YOUR fellow Mexican citizens who aren't supposed to be our country to begin with??!!

You and your newspaper make me want to puke.

"Carlos Slim Helú (Spanish pronunciation: [ˈkarlos eˈslim eˈlu]), simply known as Carlos Slim (born January 28, 1940), is a Mexican engineer, businessman and philanthropist largely focused on the telecommunications industry. He is currently the third wealthiest person in the world with a net worth of around US$35 billion through his holdings. He was able to raise money for a telecommunications company by purchasing standby letters of credit which enabled him to obtain guaranteed loans which provided the capital.[1]

........

"On September 10, 2008 Slim announced that he had purchased a 6.4 percent common-stock stake in The New York Times Company, making him the largest shareholder not related to the company's owners, the Sulzberger family.[10]

"Then, on January 19, 2009, the financially-troubled Times Company announced that it had accepted a $250 million loan from Slim.[11] While the loan will help ease the company's cash flow problems, it does not come close to eliminating the Times Company's $1.1 billion debt.[11] The company's continuing financial problems and Slim's ongoing interest in its work, as evidenced by his two interventions in the course of five months, has led to speculation that he might be contemplating an outright takeover of the Times Company.[12] A spokesman for Slim told reporters in January 2009 that the Times loan was an investment opportunity "that makes financial sense."[13]"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlos_Slim

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At least we've got 1 Judge with 2 live brain cells still connected. Good decision.

. That reprieve has nearly expired, and most of the patients have not taken steps to seek treatment elsewhere.

Several patients said they were saddened by the ruling. “I’m a person [b]who loves life, who wants to live,â€

I think you're on to something there, azwreath.