UTMB may stop offering cancer care to undocumented immigrants

GALVESTON, Texas — The University of Texas Medical Branch may stop offering cancer care to indigent, undocumented immigrants, a policy that would save money but run counter to the medical school's mission of treating the poor.

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The number of undocumented indigent cancer patients treated at the medical branch also is undocumented. Medical branch employees ask for residency documentation only to determine whether a patient is eligible for government-funded Medicaid or Medicare, not to deny access.

About 5.4 million Texans, or 24.6 percent of the state's population, is uninsured, according to a 2005 report by the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts. Noncitizens are almost three times as likely to be uninsured as native U.S. citizens, according to the report.

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Faced with less money and escalating costs, the medical branch's teaching hospital began a few years ago curtailing care to indigent patients through its Demand and Access Management Program. Under the program, indigent patients are required to undergo financial screening.

Even if the new policy were put into effect, the medical branch would not stop treating cancer patients already in its care. Once cancer treatment begins, hospitals and doctors are ethically bound to continue until patients recover or die.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/tx/5345589.html