Thread: Hospital making plans for treating ‘wave’ of migrants

Hospital making plans for treating ‘wave’ of migrants

Written by Silver City Daily Press on December 1, 2018


The wave of Central American refugees billed as the “migrant caravan” in national media is having an impact right here in Grant County, as Border Patrol agents bring foreign nationals — largely from Guatemala — needing medical attention to Gila Regional Medical Center.


Hospital CEO Taffy Arias told the Gila Regional Medical Center board of trustees during their regular meeting Friday that the hospital is building relationships with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.


“We hosted a meeting for the immigration authorities to talk about how we are dealing with the multitude and influx of patients that they are bringing in,” Arias reported. “It is becoming quite an issue, not only for them, but for our emergency department, because they’re bringing in not one or two at a time, but 10, 12 at a time.”


Later in the meeting, Trustee Joel Schram asked Arias how those patients already being brought to the hospital for care related to the larger migration underway.



“There’s a lot of information in the news about this caravan in Tijuana — fortunately, they’re in Tijuana and not south of our border with all of their problems — but are we working on plans for the potential of us being overwhelmed by them?” he asked.


Tanya Carroccio, the hospital’s chief quality officer, explained that, in many ways, the “caravan” has already arrived at the New Mexico border.


“They actually are seeing, I think, up to 300 a day in some of these areas, so we are seeing that that’s a potential for us from our perspective. It’s certainly not the thousands and thousands, but from our perspective it could be. We are working to have some close communication — for lack of a better term, some early warning — about, ‘Hey, we just had this number coming in,’ and that way we can up-staff or be prepared for those [people]. Communication is the key when it comes to this.”


“We’re not seeing people who are dangerous,” said Peggy White, the hospital’s chief nursing officer. “These are people who are actually coming forward needing help, and asking for help. That’s what we’re seeing.”


“It’s a lot of pediatrics,” Carroccio added. “These are people who had a rough time getting here, and we’re caring for them.”


According to Arias, most patients that federal agents are bringing to the Gila Regional emergency department “are not emergency patients.” For that reason, she’s exploring ways for the hospital to provide necessary care to them without overburdening staff and facilities.


“We’re setting up a time for me to go there and to look at their setup to see if it’s something that we can really help them with,” Arias said.


Hospital leadership were quick to note that Gila Regional wasn’t treating these patients without reimbursement — although “money is never a factor in patient care at Gila Regional — never,” Arias said during the meeting.


“There is actually paperwork that they do out of ICE — the federal piece of that,” Carroccio explained. “They’re happy to reimburse us for our care. We just have to make sure that we follow that process, and so we’ve done education with our registration staff, our patient access staff to make sure that we actually get that paperwork in line when we need to, or ask for it if we don’t get it.”


While that process is well-defined for patients who are being brought into the emergency room now, any off-site efforts by hospital staff would require further negotiation.


“If we go anywhere outside of our institution, we’ll have to work out something,” Arias said. “But they were very quick to say, ‘We don’t have any funding for this!’ Very quick to say it.”


Carroccio told the board that one of the problems the hospital was facing was maintaining patient privacy for the people brought in by federal agents — surprisingly, particularly from community groups that are looking to help the migrants.
“Their rights are the exact same as any other patient that comes through our doors, and therefore, privacy is so important. We’ve actually seen some potential trying to breach through that privacy from our community, from different sects coming in, trying to identify, ‘Oh, we can be of help somehow.’ … We can’t allow that to happen, and we don’t, so we’ve set up some very strict ways to help prevent that from occurring.”


One point of agreement among administrators was that the current trend was likely to continue, at least for the near future.


Arias said: “The caravan’s already coming up through El Paso, Lordsburg,” — “Antelope Wells,” Hidalgo Medical Services CEO Dan Otero volunteered — “they’re already coming in. So it’s not 8,000 at a time, but it’s significant,” Arias concluded.

http://scdailypress.com/site/2018/12...e-of-migrants/

US taxpayers should not be paying for this.

Send them to clinics back home!

They have been the cause of many of our County Hospitals to close because they do NOT pay the bill!

If we keep allowing them to come here they will overwhelm our healthcare system and bankrupt all our medical facilities!

WE CANNOT AFFORD OUR OWN INSURANCE PREMIUMS AND PRESCRIPTIONS!

SEND THEM HOME!

Originally Posted by stoptheinvaders

Hospital making plans for treating ‘wave’ of migrants

The wave of Central American refugees billed as the “migrant caravan” in national media is having an impact right here in Grant County, as Border Patrol agents bring foreign nationals — largely from Guatemala — needing medical attention to Gila Regional Medical Center.

Gila Regional Medical Center is building relationships with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

“It is becoming quite an issue, not only for them, but for our emergency department, because they’re bringing in not one or two at a time, but 10, 12 at a time.”

in many ways, the “caravan” has already arrived at the New Mexico border.

up to 300 a day in some of these areas

“We’re not seeing people who are dangerous,” said Peggy White, the hospital’s chief nursing officer. “These are people who are actually coming forward needing help, and asking for help. That’s what we’re seeing.”

“It’s a lot of pediatrics,” Carroccio added. “These are people who had a rough time getting here, and we’re caring for them.”

most patients that federal agents are bringing to the Gila Regional emergency department “are not emergency patients.”


Hospital leadership were quick to note that Gila Regional wasn’t treating these patients without reimbursement — although “money is never a factor in patient care at Gila Regional — never,”

“There is actually paperwork that they do out of ICE — the federal piece of that,” Carroccio explained. “They’re happy to reimburse us for our care.


“Their rights are the exact same as any other patient that comes through our doors, and therefore, privacy is so important.

One point of agreement among administrators was that the current trend was likely to continue, at least for the near future.

Arias said: “The caravan’s already coming up through El Paso, Lordsburg,” — “Antelope Wells,” Hidalgo Medical Services CEO Dan Otero volunteered — “they’re already coming in. So it’s not 8,000 at a time, but it’s significant,” Arias concluded.

The situation in Gila Bend, and I think it is safe to say, this is probably the situation all along the 1900 mile border.

Yeah, those hospitals are already licking their greedy chops.

“It’s a lot of pediatrics,” Carroccio added. “These are people who had a rough time getting here, and we’re caring for them.”

So children are still the golden ticket. According to the article, DHS is paying all of these medical bills, which means that's money that isn't going toward rounding up illegal aliens, raids, deportations, detention, etc.

Originally Posted by MW

So children are still the golden ticket. According to the article, DHS is paying all of these medical bills, which means that's money that isn't going toward rounding up illegal aliens, raids, deportations, detention, etc.

and they are being seen in ER but they are not an emergency. Medicare will not even pay a $60.00 a month rental fee for a knee scooter for an elderly person with a broken ankle to get around their home and remain independent and care for themselves while they heal. That US Citizen must pay, yet these invaders can have it all free.

“It is becoming quite an issue, not only for them, but for our emergency department, because they’re bringing in not one or two at a time, but 10, 12 at a time.”

According to Arias, most patients that federal agents are bringing to the Gila Regional emergency department “are not emergency patients.”