EMTALA/ON-CALL COVERAGE

Dabney v. H.C.A. Fort Walton Beach Med. Ctr., No. 3:07cv331/RS/EMT (N.D. Fla. Oct. 22, 2007)

The United States District Court for the Northern District of Florida granted a hospital's motion to dismiss a case involving the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act ("EMTALA") brought against it by a patient who presented to its emergency room and required a neurosurgical consult. The on-call neurosurgeon was unable to come in because of illness and the hospital had no backup neurosurgeon. The hospital attempted to transfer the patient to three nearby hospitals that had the capacity to stabilize the patient's condition but they refused. The hospital had no pre-arranged inter-hospital transfer agreement with any nearby hospital.

The court observed that EMTALA does not require a hospital to have a transfer agreement when an on-call physician is unavailable nor does it require that a hospital have a procedure in place guaranteeing transfer of a patient. It also noted that to be successful under EMTALA the patient must allege that the hospital could have successfully transferred him to a reasonably available hospital but did not take that course of action. Because the patient in this case did not make such allegations, the court granted the hospital's motion to dismiss.