California health care providers are asking Gov. Gavin Newsom for an emergency order exempt them from civil and criminal sanctions during the COVID-19 crisis.
“The COVID-19 pandemic is projected to affect so many people that health care providers will be forced to allocate scarce medical resources among too many patients who need them,” said an April 9 letter to Newsom from a coalition of healthcare industry groups.
The letter asks for immunity from any alleged injury, death or loss that resulted from a lack of resources.
The immunity would not cover “willful misconduct.”
“This request is made with the deep understanding that every care provider is doing all they can to protect all Californians during this unprecedented crisis,” the letter said.
The request to Newsom is signed by a coalition of groups representing health care providers, including the California Medical Association and the California Hospital Association.
“We are facing a situation that none of us has ever seen” Jan Emerson-Shea with the California Hospital Association told the Northern California Record. “The reality is that we are having to manage scarcity. Health care providers are doing the best they can under extraordinary and unprecedented circumstances. Their whole purpose is to save lives.”
Health care workers who risk their own lives to help others need to be shielded from lawsuits related to “things that were not within these individuals’ control,” said Emerson-Shea.
“We need to make sure we have these people’s backs,” she said. “We are asking them to care for patients in an extraordinary crisis.”
It is also important to provide immunity to the health care facilities, which would be the “deep pockets” in civil lawsuits, said Emerson-Shea.
“We’re all in this together,” she said. “We’re all doing the very best we can. We have to ensure that when health-care providers make decisions on the care of patients that they are protected, given the fact that we are managing scarcity right now.”