Hospitals’ Refusal to Treat Patient Faces State Inquiry

Two state Health Services divisions on Tuesday began investigating the death of a Westminster man who was refused admission to nine hospitals in Orange, Los Angeles and San Diego counties.

Also, another state agency, the Emergency Medical Services Authority, will review the case in an effort to avert a similar tragedy, Director Bruce Haynes said.

The man, ex-boxer Juan Jimenez Collado, was severely injured May 30 in an Imperial Valley traffic accident. He died June 18 in an 80-bed Brawley hospital after that facility, acknowledging that it lacked the staff and sophisticated equipment to care for Jimenez properly, repeatedly tried and failed to get him moved to a larger hospital.

Jimenez’s family has charged that the other hospitals refused him because he did not have private insurance. But some of the hospitals involved claim they did not have any empty beds or a contract to accept state Medi-Cal patients.

On Tuesday, investigators from both the state health agency’s licensing division and Medi-Cal were actively reviewing the circumstances leading to Jimenez’s death.

Medi-Cal investigators will study whether any contract hospitals violated their agreement with the state by rejecting Jimenez, said Joe Kelly, chief of Medi-Cal contract operations.

“In general, a Medi-Cal contract hospital is required to accept any patient who needs services at their hospital,” although if no doctor there was willing to admit Jiminez, there may be no breach of contract, Kelly said.

In addition, licensing investigators in Orange, San Diego and Los Angeles counties will look at whether any state regulations were violated when nine hospitals declined to accept Jimenez, said Joan Dowling, regional administrator for licensing and certification based in Santa Ana.

“At the present time, it does not appear from (newspaper accounts) that there is a violation, based on what we know about the dumping issues (in which one hospitals seeks to unload an indigent patient on another),” Dowling said. “But we want to ensure there was no violation of our regulations.”

Medi-Cal investigators will look at the following seven contract hospitals that declined to accept Jimenez: UCI Medical Center in Orange, Fountain Valley Regional Hospital and Medical Center, UCLA Medical Center, UC San Diego Medical Center, Sharp Memorial Hospital in San Diego, Mercy Hospital in San Diego and Grossmont Hospital in San Diego County.

State licensing officials will review records at those hospitals, as well as at two hospitals without Medi-Cal contracts that also declined to accept Jimenez: St. Joseph Hospital in Orange and United Western Medical Center-Santa Ana.