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FILE – Vacationers stroll on the seaside in Cabo San Lucas, in Mexico’s western Baja California Peninsula, Sept. 2, 2009. The U.S. authorities warned Individuals on Jan. 26, 2022 to keep away from a hospital at this seaside vacation spot following years of complaints that the ability preyed on Individuals by overcharging, bullying them and refusing to launch medical data. (AP Picture/Guillermo Arias, File)
By MARK STEVENSON and ELLIOT SPAGAT | The Related Press
MEXICO CITY — The U.S. authorities is warning Individuals to keep away from a hospital at a Mexican seaside vacation spot, following years of complaints that the ability preyed on Individuals by overcharging, bullying them and refusing to launch medical data.
Greater than 100,000 U.S. vacationers arrive to Los Cabos on the southern tip of the Baja California peninsula every month, drawn my its seashores and dramatic desert panorama. It seems they aren't solely a boon to the accommodations and eating places of dual cities Cabo San Lucas and San Jose del Cabo, but additionally St. Luke’s Hospital in Cabo San Lucas.
A number of complaints have been filed by U.S. residents saying the hospital demanded tens of hundreds of dollars prematurely funds, threatened sufferers’ kinfolk and refused to launch medical studies on what care they'd truly offered. That led the U.S. consulate in Tijuana to situation the bizarre “well being alert” Wednesday about St. Luke’s enterprise practices.
“U.S. residents have reported cases of withholding look after fee, failing to supply itemized lists of fees, ordering pointless procedures, withholding U.S. passports, obstructing medical evacuations, and refusing to discharge sufferers with out fee,” the consulate stated within the alert.
The hospital refused to remark when contacted by cellphone and e mail Thursday.
The consulate urged U.S. residents to go to different hospitals listed on the consulate’s internet web page.
There's some proof that St. Luke’s pays or in any other case compensates ambulances and accommodations to ship American sufferers there.
The consulate wrote, “Please be suggested that accommodations and resorts within the Los Cabos space might have present contracts or casual relationships with St. Luke’s. ”
That was an obvious reference to studies in native media that the hospital pays ambulance drivers to channel American sufferers to St. Luke’s.
The follow is outwardly longstanding. An English-language discussion board for vacationers and residents of Los Cabos posted a remark six years in the past that learn “Bear in mind that St. Luke’s has ambulance chasers out on a regular basis.”
“Apparently the drivers are paid a wholesome price for choosing you up off the road and bringing you to St. Luke’s,” in accordance with the submit by a journey agent. “My Cabo mates instructed me that so long as I may discuss to maintain screaming DO NOT TAKE ME TO St. Luke’s!!!”
Maybe one of the crucial heart-wrenching accounts was written in a proper grievance filed in August by Scott Lairson, a Los Angeles man whose spouse, Patricia Lairson, was rushed to St. Luke’s whereas the couple had been vacationing there in June. She was identified with acute respiratory failure and pneumonia because of COVID-19.
Patricia Lairson had critical respiration issues and was handled at St. Luke’s for 12 days.
She obtained good therapy however the hospital directors had been extraordinarily aggressive, telling her husband they might switch his spouse to the neighborhood hospital if he didn’t instantly pay $50,000 and that he can be unable to go to if he didn’t pay.
He put $10,000 on his bank card however had no more cash. Finally he paid $25,000 to get her flown to Arizona, the place she died. The hospital has billed his insurance coverage firm, United Healthcare, $1 million, however by no means provided the precise medical data of every therapy to justify that billing.
Lairson wrote that Mario Trejo Becerril, the hospital director, instructed him “I need that deposit immediately, you go outdoors and name your loved ones, whoever you'll want to name or don’t come again to this hospital.”
“And if I ever hear about you recording conversations together with your cellphone, you'll by no means see your spouse once more!” Lairson recounted.
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Spagat reported from San Diego.