A Georgia appeals court decided a lawsuit involving a hospital should be reinstated. The lawsuit claims that a hospital failed to treat a very sick 99-year-old woman, which led to her death. Minnie Lee Tomlinson, the patient, had kidney disease and was taken to the hospital by ambulance because she was in pain and experiencing bouts of dizziness.
The lawsuit alleges the hospital didn’t test her, check her vitals, or stabilize her condition. Instead, they sent her home without anybody to care for her. She died 3 weeks later. The appeals court decided the case shouldn’t have been thrown out because the issue in the case was whether hospital had failed to provide proper medical screening under the federal EMTALA act. The court stated that claims of that type do not require a medical expert’s report in order to bring the claim. However, other parts of the EMTALA claim, like failure to medically stabilize the patient prior to discharge, would require a medical expert’s opinion.