Hospital Ships Paralyzed 20-Year-Old Out of the Country Without Permission

Twenty-year-old Quelino Ojeda Jimenez, a patient at Advocate Christ, suffered a severe fall at the Chicago construction site where he worked, ending up in the hospital nearly quadriplegic. It's an extremely frightening and tragic situation for a young man to find himself in, but fortunately he was receiving medical care and had a strong support system from the local Mexican community.

Until, that is, he was shipped back to Mexico by hospital staff without his permission or even a chance to say anything in the matter, simply because he was an undocumented immigrant. "They threw him out like he was a piece of garbage," declared disability rights advocate Horacio Esparza. One caretaker, Florinda Marcial, says she saw Ojeda crying as he was whisked away, but neither her pleas nor the attempted intervention of the Mexican Consulate in Chicago stopped the de facto deportation.

The hospital at fault, Advocate Christ, says it “regrets” the way events went -- such as utterly failing to get their patient’s permission before shipping him off -- but insists that given his need for ongoing medical care it was best to send him to “family.” Yet the truth is that Ojeda was much better off in Chicago, where fellow Mexican immigrants had rallied to his aid and were prepared to continue to help the young man.

A person’s immigrant status does not strip them of their humanity, and I’m not familiar with the caveat in the Hippocratic Oath that says it actually is okay to harm undocumented immigrants. Ojeda deserved medical care, and he certainly deserved to be treated like a human being, with a right to a say over his care.

Advocate Christ intends to draw up more comprehensive instruction on dealing with immigrant patients. Make certain that these policies state clearly that a patient rights are not contingent on immigration status, and that nobody at their hospital will be sent away by staff without their explicit permission.

Photo credit: arriba