Also a medical ethics issue?

[nancylebov]

http://timesunion.com/AspStories/storyprint.asp?StoryID=668451

For reasons never outlined in court records, Burke's investigators zeroed in on Clement that Monday morning in March 2006, cut him off and started asking questions as he tried to exit the bus terminal.

Clement, whose criminal record consists mostly of drug convictions, tried to brush past. He told cops he didn't have to answer questions.

They pushed him against a wall, frisked him, searched his backpack and charged Clement with resisting arrest after finding no drugs or weapons, records show.

Under the law, the sheriff's investigators needed "reasonable suspicion" to stop Clement that day.

They also needed to charge him with more than just resisting arrest, which requires a person to commit some other underlying crime. Their mistake would lead a City Court judge to throw out the misdemeanor charge nine months later.

Minutes after being led from the bus station in handcuffs, Clement was taken to a sheriff's department holding cell in the bowels of the county's sprawling downtown Judicial Center. He was forced to strip naked, squat and cough as investigators wrongly concluded he was hiding drugs inside his body, according to a federal complaint.

The investigators claimed to have seen something "white" protruding from Clement's rectum during the strip-search, according to hospital records. But it's not clear why Clement, who was arrested for a misdemeanor, was strip-searched in the first place.

Upstairs in the county Judicial Center, it was midmorning on a Monday and a smattering of judges were on the bench or in their chambers, available at a moment's notice to consider any search warrant applications. A request was never made.

Instead, just before noon, Clement -- fully shackled and still in custody for a minor offense -- shuffled into Albany Medical Center Hospital with a phalanx of cops at his side, hospital records show.

He was locked in a gurney and listened anxiously as a group of doctors and nurses debated the cops' request to have Clement forcibly sedated so his body could be searched for drugs.

The doctors asked Clement to sign a consent form, but he refused.

The medical records show one of the doctors placed a call to the hospital's risk management director to assess the liability exposure of what they were about to do.

In some cases, prisoners or people under arrest can be forcibly sedated without a court order if they are in imminent danger, such as when a bag of drugs bursts open inside them and they begin to have a seizure or fall unconscious. But the hospital's records indicate Clement was behaving normally and showed no signs of any medical emergency.

"Spoke to Shirley of Risk Management," a physician wrote, documenting the medical decision-making that afternoon. "OK to treat, sedate & remove FOB (foreign object body) against (patient's) will despite his personal refusal."

The following month, Clement received a $6,792 bill from Albany Med for the procedures. Hospital records indicate the final diagnosis as "hemorrhoids."

No question that the behavior of the police was atrocious, but are there rules against what the hospital did?

Link thanks to The Agitator.

Comments

[avram]

The following month, Clement received a $6,792 bill from Albany Med for the procedures.

When the Chinese Communists used to send an executed prisoner's family a bill for the bullet, it was generally only a few cents.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that crossed my mind, too.

[thnidu.livejournal.com]

Hell's fucking blazing bells, HE didn't request the procedure. Bill the goddam police.

[dr-zrfq.livejournal.com]

Worse -- he specifically DENIED consent. That's the same as refusing treatment. They have no legal right to bill him for treating him after he refused. Not only should the police pay the hospital, the hospital should pay the victim -- they need to be taught a lesson. (As do the cops, but that's the issue before the federal court.)

[holzman.livejournal.com]

There are supposed to be rules against what the hospital did, though state laws probably vary. I think Clement has, or should have, a good legal case not only to be held not liable for the medical charges, but for a rather massive lawsuit against the hospital.

When I was working as a database administrator for Bellevue Hospital's AIDS program, a cop called in and wanted the results of the HIV test that had been administered to a prostitute who had bitten him when he arrested her. He was very resistant to the message that I couldn't confirm or deny that the woman was a patient at Bellevue, let alone disclose the results of tests that might have been performed if she was a patiend, and that if he thought he had been exposed to HIV he should get himself tested. But at least he got the message when I handed the phone off to a Doctor, and she explained it to him.

He so needs a good lawer

[wolfdancer.livejournal.com]

and the risk of doing a exam to some one with this conditons is painfull at least.
I woudl go for pain and suffering also.
Rape is such a ugly word.

Re: He so needs a good lawer

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

Exactly.

[madfilkentist]

Yes, there are rules against it. The laws against assault and extortion, for starters.

It's not just that he doesn't owe the medical center money; the hospital staff responsible for assaulting him should be thrown in jail and never permitted to work in the medical profession again.

Edit: Come to think of it, the Albany Medical Center staff should also be charged with rape. I'm completely serious.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

Thank you. The bill is like an insult on top of serious injury.