Deal Near on Dialysis Care for Illegal Immigrants

(Sept. 1) -- When Atlanta's public hospital closed its outpatient dialysis clinic last fall for financial reasons, some 60 poor patients, most of them illegal immigrants, were left in the lurch.

Grady Memorial was hit with a lawsuit and agreed to continue providing care, but the contract for those treatments expired Tuesday. Now the hospital and dialysis providers have reached a tentative agreement to continue the treatments, according to media reports.

The deal would provide free dialysis that end-state renal patients need to stay alive, The New York Times said. Grady would help pay for care for most of the patients, while others would be covered by dialysis providers, the newspaper said.

The issue has highlighted the fate of illegal immigrants without insurance. Federal law bans government insurance for those in the country illegally, the Times noted, adding that the nation's new health care law does not fix the problem.

Details still to be worked out include how much Grady will pay to continue care and for how long, The Associated Press reported.

"We have a framework of an agreement," hospital spokesman Matt Grove told AP. "It's a community issue and the major dialysis providers in the community have stepped up and said they will provide some charity care."

That was good news for 24-year-old Ignacio Godinez Lopez, who entered the U.S. illegally as a teenager and whose dialysis has been paid for by Grady for four years.

"That would make me feel real happy because continuing with my dialysis, I need it to live," he told The Times. "I'm young, and without dialysis it would be taking my life."

Another patient, Bineet Kaur, was happy that a deal seems close.

"The last two weeks have been so stressful," Kaur, 27, of India, told AP. "I'm so relieved to hear there's going to be an agreement. Thank you to God."

Kaur arrived in the U.S. on a tourist visa and applied for political asylum because she didn't feel safe at home living as a single woman, but the request was denied, making her an illegal immigrant, AP said.

She is among the 33 patients who filed a lawsuit against Grady, a case due to be tried in state appeals court this fall.

When the outpatient clinic was closed, Grady offered to send patients to other states or their native countries and fund three months of dialysis, The Times said. Thirteen accepted that deal. Several patients have died since last year.

At a demonstration last week, advocates for the poor asked Emory University's hospital to help, and its hospital center said it would cover three patients.

"Three people?" said Grady Coalition member Dianne Mathiowetz, according to CBSAtlanta.com "Three people is not enough. Emory should be an advocate. Emory should set an example. Emory should go above what a so-called fair share is."

Emory Healthcare said it will start treating the three in September, at an annual cost of about $40,000 each, AP said.

The dialysis issue arose a year ago in Las Vegas, where University Medical Center said treating 80 illegal immigrants cost about $24 million a year. With no federal or state reimbursement, the hospital noted, the expense added to its projected deficit at the time of $70 million.

"Our people are really torn," Brian Brannman, University Medical Center's chief operating officer, told the Las Vegas Review-Journal in an August 2009 story. "We want to take care of people who are ill. We're proud that we can save lives. But our employees are also worried about the survival of UMC. They know that the appetite of taxpayers for helping undocumented immigrants is limited."