Court Opinion

ID: 9535948
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 06:47:10.541473+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:33:23.767791
License: Public Domain

NEAL, Judge,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent.
Ind.Code 12-5-1-1 (1976)1 provided in part that
“The county department of public welfare ... is hereby empowered to commit to any public hospital ... any person ... who shall appear to the satisfaction of the department after examination and upon recommendation of a physician or surgeon ... to be suffering from a disease, defect or deformity, which may be benefited by treatment in such hospital.... ” (Emphasis added.)
The section further provided for investigation and determination by the department of the financial eligibility of such persons. A public hospital was defined as “county and city hospitals or hospitals which are not conducted for profit.” Ind.Code 12-5-1-11 (1976). Ind.Code 12-5-1-15 (1976) stated that:
“Whenever any person is admitted to any hospital operated by the trustees of Indiana University or to any other public hospital on an emergency basis with the expectation that the county department of public welfare shall be responsible for necessary charges and expenses, the hospital authorities shall notify promptly such county department of public welfare who shall investigate immediately and determine the eligibility or ineligibility of such person for hospitalization at the expense of the county department of public welfare and shall promptly notify the proper hospital authority of such determination. When any person is committed on an emergency basis subject to the later determination of eligibility, the necessary investigation, determination of eligibility or ineligibility, and notification of hospital authorities of such determination, shall be made promptly. If ineligible, the hospital authorities shall make collection directly from the patient or persons responsible for him or from other resources available to him or from other responsible public authorities. If the county department of public welfare has participated in the original emergency commitment subject to a later determination of eligibility, upon a determination of ineligibility, the liability of the county department of public welfare shall cease in any event, whenever such emergency is over and the patient can be moved from such hospital without injury as determined by medical authority.”
Ind.Code 12-5-1-2 (1976) provided in part that:
*375“If the department shall determine that a person is a proper subject for treatment in a hospital ... and commits such person thereto, the department shall transmit an application and commitment to the hospital ... The determination of all professional matters with respect to the treatment of such person, the length of treatment and date of final discharge of said patient from said hospital, shall be made solely by the physician, or physicians, responsible for the treatment of such person.”
The majority takes the position that this latter provision is wholly controlling, and ignores the other sections quoted above which give discretion to the Welfare Departments in the placement of indigents in hospitals.
Vanderburgh County has two facilities operated by the Department of Mental Health of the State of Indiana, including the Evansville State Hospital and the Southwestern Mental Health Clinic, specializing in the care of mental patients and drug and alcohol abusers. These facilities exist pursuant to Ind.Code 16-13-1-3 et seq., and Ind.Code 16-13-7-1 et seq.
In this instance we are dealing with mental patients, and alcohol and drug abusers. The policy of the Welfare Department, in effect, limits their stay in the most expensive general hospital to five to seven days, sufficient time to provide necessary emergency care for such patients. There is no showing of any need for general hospital care for a longer period of time. It does not appear that the Welfare Department received any prior or contemporaneous notice, required by Ind.Code 12-5-1-15 (1976), that physicians had placed these patients in the general hospital.
I view the policy of the Welfare Department as a reasonable one; after emergency care has been given and the patient’s condition is no longer life-threatening, he would be placed in a much less expensive, State-supported mental health facility which has an extensive treatment program for drug and alcohol abuse.
Under the sections cited above, the Welfare Department is granted a certain amount of discretion to determine when and where indigent patients are placed, and is permitted to require them to be placed in a suitable facility that is State-maintained and less expensive. The majority opinion gives health care providers a blank check on the public treasury with no restraint whatever. Under such a rule health care providers may unnecessarily keep a patient in a more expensive general hospital for their own convenience or economic benefit. I do not believe the legislature contemplated such a result. When the State has created adequate facilities for the care of indigents, it may require that these facilities be used whenever feasible. I would affirm the judgment of the trial court.

. Ind.Code 12-5-1-1 — 12-5-1-7 was repealed by Acts 1981, P.L. 144, 82. For present law see Ind.Code 12-5-6-1 — 12-5-6-11.