28
Healthcare Journal of Baton Rouge
| July / August 2008 Issue | healthcarejournalbr.com
busy emergency room handles many different
cases: car accident injuries, gun-shot wounds, chil-
dren with soaring fevers or broken bones. And
perhaps a patient with a mental disturbance.
Most people know that the ER must handle the
emergency medical conditions, and maybe they
have even heard of the federal anti-dumping
statute. But does a hospital also have to han-
dle emergency mental conditions? Does it
have the same types of obligations to some-
one who's suicidal as it does to someone suffering a
heart attack?
EMTALA Basics
The Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor
Act (EMTALA) is a federal law that requires hospitals
with emergency departments (ED) to provide a medical
screening examination to anyone who comes to the ED
and requests examination or treatment for a medical
condition. If it's determined that the person has an
emergency medical condition, the hospital can't refuse
treatment. Even if the hospital doesn't have the capac-
ity or capability to treat the patient, it has to stabilize him
or her before making a transfer to a facility that does
have the ability to care for the patient.
by: Emily Black Grey, Breazeale, Sachse & Wilson, LLP
1700s:
Some reforms are
seen in care of the mentally
ill, with shackles and
dungeons regarded as
improper.
1703:
John Broughton coins
the term psychology in
Psychologia: the nature of
the rational soul
.
1752:
Pennsylvania Hospital
devotes area in the basement
to treating the mentally ill.