The Georgia hospital that failed to save Amber Thurman may have broken a federal law when doctors there waited 20 hours to perform a procedure criminalized by the state’s abortion ban, according to Sen. Ron Wyden, chair of the Senate Finance Committee.

The Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, or EMTALA, requires hospitals to provide emergency care to stabilize patients who need it — or transfer them to a hospital that can. Passed nearly four decades ago, the law applies to any hospital with an emergency department and that accepts Medicare funding, which includes the one Thurman went to, Piedmont Henry in suburban Atlanta. The finance committee has authority over the regulatory agency that enforces the law.

In a letter sent Monday, Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, cites ProPublica’s investigation into Thurman’s death, which was found preventable by a state committee of maternal health experts. The senator’s letter asks Piedmont CEO David Kent whether the hospital has delayed or denied emergency care to pregnant patients since Georgia’s abortion ban went into effect. (Kent did not respond to requests for comment.)

    • Maeve
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      -182 days ago

      Lol. What rule was broken by that post?

      No, they don’t need to listen to people who will vote for them anyway.

      Eta: When mods break their own rules then gripe about authoritarianism. Please.

      • @FlowVoid@lemmy.world
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        82 days ago

        Parties pay the most attention to donors and primary voters, both of whom usually vote for the party in November.

        If you never vote for Democrats, then as far as they’re concerned you’re in the same category as MAGA. They don’t listen to those people either.

        • Maeve
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          -142 days ago

          Is that why the Democratic party has shifted so far right since the New Deal? So far right that war criminals are endorsing them?

          • @FlowVoid@lemmy.world
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            2 days ago

            Shifted to the right?

            You realize FDR refused to put any form of health insurance into the New Deal because he thought it would be too socialist to pass?

            • Maeve
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              -72 days ago

              Because they’ve been using the red scare since forever. Yes. Nixon was considering single payer, until he listened to Kaiser. You do realize candidates can be socially left and economically right? You do realize they can be socially left domestically and blow them up, abroad?

              • @FlowVoid@lemmy.world
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                62 days ago

                Compared to FDR, Democrats have moved left on health care (Medicare, ACA), gay rights (RFMA), race (VRA, Civil Rights Act), social welfare (Medicaid, SCHIP), women’s rights (Civil Rights Act, Lily Ledbetter), environment (IRA), drugs (multiple statewide decriminalization laws) …

                • Maeve
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                  -32 days ago

                  Are you not paying attention? How many people with Medicare and insurance can actually afford healthcare? Vra? Voting rights? How’s that going? Civil rights? How is that going? How many are incarcerated for nothing and next to nothing and performing slave labor? How many were wrongfully executed? Environment? Yeah, how’s that going? Statewide drug decrim and federal raids or businesses can’t bank. Women’s rights? 🤣 Please. How about human rights? Gaza. How about hungry kids in school? Working class living in cars, sleeping rough. Please.

                  Eta zero irony that you’re arguing any of this, let alone women’s rights, in a thread about a woman who died because she couldn’t get reproductive care. Because doctors, not politicians. Sure. 😒