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That right, guaranteed by the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, known across the country by healthcare professionals as Emtala, was borne out of what was once a common practice called “patient dumping” – transferring patients who could not pay from private hospitals to public counterparts, even in emergency situations.
“There were many reasons it was enacted,” said Sara Rosenbaum, a professor of health law at George Washington University’s Milken Institute of Public Health, and an attorney who helped craft the Emtala law.
“One was because people were dumping [patients] who were uninsured, but another reason – and it was in the congressional record – was pregnant women who were being turned away,” she said.