Alabama Hospital Settles Case Involving Patient Dumping Allegation

On December 4, 2017, Greenville Hospital Corporation d/b/a L.V. Stabler Memorial Hospital (L.V. Stabler), Greenville, Alabama, entered into a $20,000 settlement agreement with OIG. The settlement agreement resolves allegations that, based on OIG’s investigation, L.V. Stabler violated the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act when it failed to provide an adequate medical screening examination and stabilizing treatment for a 16-year-old female patient. The patient was 27-weeks pregnant and had presented by ambulance to L.V. Stabler’s Emergency Department (ED), complaining of vaginal bleeding and a sharp pain in her lower abdomen. A nurse obtained the patient’s vital signs and measured the fetal heart rate. An ED physician examined the patient and called the patient’s obstetrician to discuss the patient’s condition. Without providing an appropriate medical screening examination, the ED physician decided to send the patient for monitoring to another hospital where the patient’s obstetrician was located. The ED physician discharged the patient and instructed her to go to the other hospital that was 55 miles away from L.V. Stabler. On the way to the other hospital, the patient’s family members called emergency medical services (EMS). When EMS arrived, the patient was lying on the ground next to her car, experiencing severe abdominal pain, vaginal pain, and light bleeding. EMS drove the patient to a different hospital where she delivered a stillborn infant within minutes of arriving. Associate Counsel Srishti Sheffner represented OIG.

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