US hospitals deporting unconscious illegal immigrants

Press TV reports US hospitals have been deporting undocumented immigrants while they were unconscious, after healthcare providers deemed their treatment too costly.

During the past five years, US hospitals have deported over 600 illegal immigrants to their home countries – a term dubbed “medical repatriation” – in an effort for healthcare providers to cut expenses in cases of long-term care after serious illness or injury.
Healthcare practitioners have practiced hospital deportations amid the federal government’s failure to impose any sort of regulatory legislation on the matter.
Neresh Gehi, an immigration attorney said: “The doctor’s should not even be getting involved in the immigration matter because if you look at the ethics of doctors, the doctor’s job is to save the life of a person. Even if that person is legal or illegal, it should not matter at all.”
Immigrant advocates say medical repatriation violates US and international law which states that all hospitals are required to care for patients regardless of their citizenship status, or their ability to pay or not.
Gehi said: “A lot of people will wind up going to private doctors and paying from their pockets, I believe. Only emergency patients will be going to hospitals, for example when they’re unconscious. In those instances, I believe that the hospitals have to be a little more concerned about the human being rather than getting them deported from the country.”