Illinois Advocate Christ Medical Center Admits Of Deporting Quadriplegic Patient To Mexico Against His Will

Quelino Jimenez Ojeda

Advocate Christ Medical Center senior vice president finally admitted they deported undocumented quadriplegic patient back to Mexico without his family authorization.

By H. Nelson Goodson
February 7, 2011

Oak Lawn, Illinois - On Sunday, the Chicago Tribune reported that Kelly Jo Golson, senior vice president and spokesperson for Advocate Christ Medical Center (ACMC) in Oak Lawn had admitted to deporting quadriplegic patient Quelino Jimenez Ojeda, 23, to Mexico. Ojeda was taken out of the medical center on December 21, after the executive ACMC board decided to forcibily remove Ojeda from hospital care after five months of treatment for a spinal cord injury escalating to 650,000 in medical costs. Ojeda was taken out of the hospital by AeroCare personnel hired by ACMC and put Ojeda on a plane to Mexico, so ACMC could finally stop paying for his medical treatment. The AeroCare transfer of Ojeda to Mexico cost $60,000, according to Golson.
Golson told the Chicago Tribune that after several private long care facilities refused to take him as a patient, Advocate executives decided to repatriate (deport) Ojeda without his consent or family authorization. In December, Advocate officials had persisted, Ojeda was removed from the hospital by permission of Ojeda's mother.
Joseph Cece, AeroCare CEO in Sugar Grove told the Chicago Tribune that the doctors in Advocate and in Mexico had approved the transfer of Ojeda to Mexico. To Cece, it was a successful mission. It sure was for Cece, his company profits from illegal deportations like in Ojeda's case. Doctors have no legal authority to transfer any patient to any foreign country without the patient's consent or family authorization and Cece should know better.
Chicago Mexican community activists and friends had alleged that Advocate and AeroCare had falsified information to illegally remove Ojeda from the U.S. With the current revelations from Golson, it seems Advocate might have indeed falsified information to receive documents from the Mexican government to allow AeroCare to transport Ojeda into Oaxaca, Mexico.
Advocate system is working to draw up new comprehensive policies to deal with medical repatriations for its 12 hospitals, according to Golson and the Chicago Tribune. However, Advocate's executive decision to repatriate Ojeda was definately illegal and most likely violated both state and federal laws including the Disabilities Act of 1991. Advocate officials should be held both liable and criminally accountable, according to Chicago Mexican community activists. Community activists, family and friends say, a new attorney representing Ojeda is expected to file a lawsuit against Advocate.
The Chicago Mexican Consulate had confirmed that Advocate or AeroCare never officially notified them of Ojeda's deportation from Chicago to Mexico. At least between 10-15 repatriations of seriously ill or disabled undocumented immigrants are reported to the consulate per year, according to Ioana Navarrate Pellicer from the Mexican Consulate Protection Department in Chicago.
The Mexican Secretary of Foreign Relations (SRE) has launched an investigation into who provided unauthorized government documents to Advocate Christ Medical Center and AeroCare in order to privately deport Ojeda without anyone knowing.
ACMC is a non-profit medical center. The Advocate system operates 12 medical facilities including hospitals.

Did AeroCare & Advocate Christ Hospital Falsified Information To Acquire Mexican Documents To Deport Quadriplegic Patient? http://bit.ly/hr1XW1

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Several Illinois Mexican Groups Calling For Three Chicago Consuls To Be Ousted By SRE

Chicago Mexican Consulate

The groups say the three consuls engaged in intimidation and intended to discredit Mexican organizations.

By H. Nelson Goodson
January 28, 2011

Chicago, Illinois - On Friday, the Hispanic Council (HC) in Hillside and the Casa Mexiquense (CM) from Waukegan announced that they will have a joint press conference on Monday, Jan. 31, beginning at 11:00 a.m. at the HC location, 4100 Madison St. in Hillside. The conference will also be aired live on WNDZ 750 AM Radio in the Chicago metropolitan area. Both the HC and MC are calling for the ouster of three Chicago Mexican Consulate consuls for their active participation to engage in tactics of intimidation and for their role in discrediting numerous community Mexican organizations, under the alleged direction of General Consul Manuel Rodriguez Arriaga. Luis E. Pelayo, Founder and President of the Hispanic Council says, they are requesting the Mexican Secretary of Exterior Relations (SRE) to remove Consuls Joaquín Pastrana, Community Organizing, Ioana Navarrete, Department Head of Protection and Dante Gómez, Social Support Coordinator at the Mexican Consulate in Chicago. 
Pelayo says, evidence of their unethical service to the Mexican community will be presented to the media.
Consul Arriaga is expected to be replaced in early March by the newly named Chicago Consul Eduardo Arnal Palomera currently at the Denver, Colorado Mexican Consulate. Palomera's nomination by President Felipe Calderon is still in the process of being approved by the Mexican Congress.
Arriaga who has been at the Chicago Consulate for almost four years was named as the Mexican Ambassador for Peru and will also have to be approved by the Congress. In the last several years, Consul Arriaga has been criticised and accused of deliberately shunning certain community based organzations. Even protests by groups during the Summer leading up to the Bicentennial Celebrations have been staged outside the Mexican Consulate calling for his ouster.
Pelayo indicated that the HC had provided Arriaga with a proposal to implement a 24 hour hotline for Mexican nationals seeking legal advice and other services. The proposal included adding two paralegals and an attorney.
Today, no one answers the phone lines once the Consulate closes for the day. If police try to contact the Consulate after closing hours, when they hold someone that is undocumented to let notify the Consulate, a person can be held and then deported without Consulate representation. "An unanswered call can leave a chlid without their father or mother, this is outrageous," Pelayo stated. The Hispanic Council and Casa Mexiquense have freed more Mexican nationals being detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement than the Consulate under Arriaga's direction, according to Pelayo.
The Consulate makes between $5 to $7 million U.S. annually on visas, Mexican legal documents and services to Mexican nationals from Wisconsin, Indiana and Illinois.
Currently, the Mexican Consulate is being criticised for not acting or publically condemning the illegal deportations of thousands of Mexican nationals in the Chicago area and the illegal private corporation deportation of quadriplegic patient Quelino Jimenez Ojeda, 23, in December by AeroCare and Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn. Community activists alleged both the AeroCare and Advocate might have falsified information to acquire Mexican government documents to deport Ojeda to Oaxaca, Mexico without his consent or families authorization. The SRE has launched an investigation into who provided unauthorized government documents to Advocate Christ Medical Center and AeroCare in order to privately deport Ojeda without anyone knowing.  

Article on Ojedas deportation:

Did AeroCare & Advocate Christ Hospital Falsified Information To Acquire Mexican Documents To Deport Quadriplegic Patient? http://bit.ly/hr1XW1

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Did AeroCare And Advocate Christ Hospital Falsified Information To Acquire Mexican Government Documents To Deport Quadriplegic Patient?

Quelino Jimenez Ojeda at Advocate Christ Medical Center

Community activists alleged both AeroCare and Advocate Christ Hospital executives conspired to provide false information to acquire documents to deport quadriplegic patient in December.

By H. Nelson Goodson
January 27, 2011

Chicago, Illinois - New allegations that Advocate Christ Medical Center (ACMC) in Oak Lawn and AeroCare in Illinios had conspired to provide false information to the Mexican government in order to acquire documents to illegally deport quadriplegic patient Quelino Jimenez Ojeda, 23, in December. The allegations were raised by several members of the Mexican community in Chicago who did not want to be identified after attempts failed to get information about Ojedas abruptly departure from ACMC. They say Advocate Christ Medical Center Spokesperson Kelly Jo Golson has failed to provide any information citing privacy policy about who authorized Ojedas private corporate deportation to Mexico and who provided the legal Mexican government documents needed to transport Ojeda by AeroCare into Mexico. Neither, Advocate Christ Medical Center or AeroCare, the private company contracted by the hospital to transport Ojeda via airplane from Chicago to Oaxaca, Mexico have cooperated with a group of community activists and members from LULAC questioning the deportation.
Ojeda who has a young daughter remains at the Tuxtepec Maria Lombardo Hospital in Oaxaca and his mother has to pay for the medicine, according to friends. The Mexican government is trying to get funding for his care.
Ojeda's Chicago Attorney James Geraghty admitted that he wasn't informed that his client was being discharged and transported to Mexico. Garaghty was expected to file a lawsuit against ACMC in behave of Ojeda, but last week was replaced by another attorney on Ojedas family request, according to Garaghty's secretary in Chicago.
Hospital officials had claimed that Ojeda's mother had authorized the discharged and transport of Ojeda to Mexico. It was later learned, Ojeda's mother never authorized his discharge or move. ACMC is having difficulty trying to track down who actually talked to Ojedas family for authorization.
Officials at the Mexican Consulate in Chicago have confirmed that ACMC or AeroCare never officially consulted the Consulate on Ojeda's move. The ACMC would had to provide documents Ojeda was from Mexico and had agreed to go back to Mexico, which officials at the Consulate admitted ACMC provided none and didn't notified them. 
If officials at the Consulate in Chicago are saying they didn't provide the legal documents and paper work to allow Ojeda to return to Mexico, then who did? The Secretary of Foreign Exterior Relations (SRE) in Mexico is investigating, if any Mexican laws were broken by Mexican Consulate workers in the U.S. or Mexico in providing unauthorized documents to ACMC and AeroCare.
Jesus Vargas, a community activist from Chicago had petition the SRE in Mexico to investigate the government entity or Mexican Consulate that provided the documents needed for Ojeda to be allowed into Mexico. Patricia Espinosa Calletano from the SRE has confirmed, the SRE has launch an investigation into the Ojeda case to find out who authorized the documents that allowed Advocate Hospital and AeroCare to transport Ojeda to Oaxaca.
So far, no U.S. federal or state investigation has been petitioned or launched to see, if ACMC and AeroCare violated any federal laws and Ojeda's rights as a disabled person.
On December 21, the executive ACMC board decided to forcibily remove Ojeda from hospital care after five months of treatment for a spinal cord injury. Ojeda was taken out of the hospital by AeroCare personnel hired by ACMC and put Ojeda on a plane to Mexico, so ACMC could finally stop paying for his medical treatment. Ojeda became a quadriplegic as a result of a work related injury in Chicago.
He lived in Atlanta Georgia and is originally from Oaxaca, Mexico. In August, Ojeda had been working for an Atlanta based roofing company in the Chicago area when he was injured. He apparently fell to the ground from a ladder located on the fourth floor damaging his spinal cord when he cracked his neck on the fall and became a quadriplegic requiring the use of an artificial respirator to keep him alive.
In a press release issued in December by a group that exposed and protested ACMC's decision to repatriate (deport) Ojeda, Horacio Esparza Executive Director of Progress Center For Independent Living, which advocates for people with disabilities stated, ”Christ Hospital repatriated this patient back to rural Mexico where he will be unable to receive proper medical care for his condition. The hospital acted with out any humanity and violated all medical ethics to save lives.” Esparza is legally blind.
Jesus Vargas of the March 10th Coalition said, ”We wil pray for the respect and dignity of are immigrant brothers that suffer accidents that leave them crippled for life.”
Marlene Cruz a 20 year old Hispanic American whose family helped with the care of Quelino stated, “I use to think that Christ hospital was a good place-- but now after what they have done to Quelino-- I feel outraged that this hospital would do something to a person just for not having papers.”
Julie Contreras, LULAC National Immigrant Affairs Commission stated, ”While the President, Senate and Congress of this nation allow the immigration laws to remain broken—human beings who come to this country to work hard for a better life become disposable waste for Corporations like Advocate Health & Hospitals.”
U.S. hospitals who receive Medicare reimbursements must provide emergency care to a patient until they're stabilized and a plan for discharge is filed, under federal law.

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Feds And State Officials Allowing Illegal Dumpings In Foreign Countries Of Disabled Undocumented Patients By U.S. Hospitals

Quelino Jimenez Ojeda

Editorial:

A New Year approaches as the feds and state officials continue to over look hospitals and their executive medical boards that decide to dump disabled patients in other countries without legal consent.

By H. Nelson Goodson
December 31, 2010

Chicago, Illinois - On December 21, the executive board of the Advocate Christ Medical Center (ACMC) in Oak Lawn near Chicago decided to forcibily remove Quelino Jimenez Ojeda, 23, from the hospital care after five months of treatment for a spinal cord injury. Ojeda was taken out of the hospital by a private company hired by ACMC and put on a plane to Mexico, so ACMC could finally stop paying for his medical treatment. Ojeda became a quadriplegic as a result of a work related injuring. He was admitted to ACMC in August and on December 21, Ojeda was repatriated (deported) to Mexico because he was undocumented and happened to be admitted to ACMC.
The deportation was not done by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement or any other federal agency, but a mere hospital group of people in the executive board of the ACMC.
Their reasoning, Ojeda's mother approved the removal, but now it was learned that she never authorized such removal. His former guardian and lawyer weren't even notified of Ojeda's departure.
So far, no federal or state investigation has been launched to see if ACMC and the private company they hired to removed him violated any federal laws and Ojeda's rights as a disabled person. Sure there was an expense to treat Ojeda, but what ever the cost ACMC could have write it off at the end of the year as a business donation, contribution, or expense in claiming tax deductions, if run as a private business. Even, if they were non-profit ACMC could have claimed it and sought grants and corporate contributions or placed Ojeda at an affordable care service provider where he could continue to get care at a lower cost.
Nevertheless, they took it upon themselves and deported Ojeda to a remote area in Oaxaca, Mexico where there is a less efficient hospital to provide him with an artificial respirator to keep him alive.
ACMC and the private firm that they hired and all those responsible who conspired to repatriate Ojeda should all be charged with federal felonies for kidnapping, civil rights violation, discrimination against disable patients, transporting an unwilling disable person to another country and dumping in a foreign soil among other would be charges.
It's about time the U.S. Department of Justice, U.S. Department of State, U.S. Department Homeland Security, U.S. Congress and President Barack H. Obama step up to the plate to enforce disabilities laws, transporting unwilling disabled patients to a foreign country and protect the disable patients whether legal or illegally in the U.S.
By ACMC decision to deport Ojeda back to Mexico in order to save costs, they have sentenced him to possible death without committing a capital offense.
In the 1940's, Adolf Hitler in Germany had a master plan for disabled people, by putting them in consentration camps and then gasing them as part of the final solution. It's a long shot from what Hitler adopted to compare the final solution with what is actually happening today to defenseless and disabled patients in U.S. hospitals.
Someone has to care and expose the issue nationally to ensure equal protection of the law to all the disabled patients and human beings in our mists. They're equally protected under the U.S. Constitution and disabilities laws that were created to protect people with disabilities. Then, why aren't they being enforced?, are lawsuits the only venue to get remedy? Why haven't hospitals paid the ultimate price by losing their licenses to operate for violating the rights of the disabled? It's time for the feds and state officials to charge those with criminal offenses who commit such violations against the disable patients.
However, ACMC did what some people (Chicago Latino community supporters for Ojeda) are alleging and calling an illegal act by deporting a defenseless disabled patient who was costing them profits in medical treatment.
There has been other cases as well of disabled patients being repatriated to foreign countries. One case in particular was Luis Alberto Jimenez, then 31, in Florida who became a quadriplegic with severe brain damage in a 2000 traffic accident. He was then deported on July 10, 2003 by the Martin Memorial Medical Center in Stuart to Guatemala. The hospital executive medical board argued that they had paid more than $1 million to treat Jimenez for three years, who was an undocumented patient. They decided to repatriate him to Guatemala for his own good by spending more than $30,000 to transport him in a chartered private jet.
In a lawsuit brought by his cousin Montejo Gasper, a jury found that the hospital had done the right thing to deport Jimenez back to his country. On appeal in 2009, the Florida state appeals judge overturned the case and ruled that state judges don't have the power to decide immigration cases and that Jimenez shouldn't have been sent back to Guatemala by Martin Memorial Medical Center. A tragic case.
U.S disabled patients throughout the country are facing the same treatment, discrimination and dumpings by hospitals trying to save their own profits and annual raises for capping costs. News reports from 2006 to date have exposed such illegal dumpings of U.S. Citizens by hospitals in Los Angeles, California, New York, and in other states whose executive medical boards decided to discharge and dump the elderly, disabled and homeless patients who lack insurance into skid row areas, streets and homeless shelters not equiped to handle such patients in order to cut costs.
This type of cases will follow in the New Year 2011, if Americans, the feds and President Obama just seat back and continue to let it happen.

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Protest At Advocate Christ Medical Center In Illinois For Illegally Deporting Quadriplegic Undocumented Immigrant To Mexico

Quelino Jimenez Ojeda

Photo courtesy of Jesus Vargas

In January, a lawyer will file a lawsuit asking for an unspecified amount of compensation against hospital for deporting his client. 

By H. Nelson Goodson
December 29, 2010

Oak Lawn, Illinois - On Wednesday afternoon, numerous members and several organizations from the Hispanic community protested in front of the Advocate Christ Medical Center (ACMC), 4440 W. 95th Street in Oak Lawn near Chicago for illegally deporting a quadriplegic undocumented patient back to Mexico. ACMC's repatriation of a patient to eliminate further incurring medical costs is being condemn by members of the Mexican community in Chicago.
The protest included a vigil, which protesters claim that Quelino Jimenez Ojeda, 23, was illegally repatriated (deported) by the hospital in violation of international laws and without the Mexican goverment's legal authorization. Ojeda is originally from Oaxaca, Mexico and in August had been working for an Atlanta based roofing company in the Chicago area when he was injured. He apparently fell to the ground from a ladder located on the fourth floor damaging his spinal cord when he cracked his neck on the fall and became a quadriplegic requiring the use of an artificial respirator to keep him alive.
He was admitted to Advocate Christ Medical Center in August and on December 22, the ACMC hospital medical executive board decided to repatriate Ojeda without his consent and without informing his family, lawyer or the Mexican Consulate in Chicago about the drastic measure. On December 16, Ojeda informed hospital staff that he was refusing to be discharged by an attempt to deport him back to Mexico, where his medical needs won't be provided to survive his condition.
On December 22, Reinaldo Cruz Garcia, the legal guardian for Ojeda and two friends went to visit him at the hospital, but Ojeda was no where to be found. They went to get information from Adam Weber, a social worker at ACMC who neglected to provide them with any information about Ojeda and called security to remove Garcia and two other people from the hospital for inquiring about the whereabouts of Ojeda. Although, they were able to see Ojeda being transported out of the hospital, according to a press release.
Garcia was taken off as the guardian a day before Ojeda was deported when ACMC petitioned a judge in Cook County for his removal. The hospital medical staff upgraded his condition and was discharged the following day with authorization of Ojeda's mother in Mexico. When Garcia and Ana Maria Cruz spoke to his mother in Oaxaca, she denied giving any approval for ACMC to discharge and transport Ojeda to a less efficient hospital in Mexico.
The ACMC hospital officials committed an illegal act of "Dumping," said Chicago Attorney James Geraghty in an interview with the EFE news agency in Mexico. Geraghty prevented Ojeda's repatriation in November when he was hired to represent Ojeda by the Mexican Consulate in Chicago.
In the EFE article Geraghty said, a colleague at the ACMC couldn't confirm who decided for Ojeda to be repatriated without his consent as a result of not having the money to pay for medical costs. No information was provided by Geraghty, if the roofing company had provided insurance for Ojeda.
Ioana Navarrete Pellicer, Department Chief of Protection at the Mexican Consulate in Chicago told EFE that two vice presidents at the ACMC had said they didn't have to comment or give any information concerning Ojeda to the Mexican Consulate. Navarrete is credited for getting Geraghty who provides legal seminers at the consulate to represent Ojeda.
Geraghty confirmed that in January he will file a lawsuit against ACMC asking for an unspecified compensation for the removal of  Ojeda, in behave of Ojeda and his family. He said, Ojeda was taken to a hospital in Mexico where they can't provide an artificial respirator for Ojeda to be kept alive, according to EFE.
In a press released issued by the vigil group protesting ACMC's decision to repatriate Ojeda, Horacio Esparza, Executive Director of Progress Center For Independent Living, which advocates for people with disabilities stated, ”Christ Hospital repatriated this patient back to rural Mexico where he will be unable to receive proper medical care for his condition. The hospital acted with out any humanity and violated all medical ethics to save lives.” Esparza is legally blind.
Jesus Vargas of the March 10th Coalition said, ”We will pray for the respect and dignity of are immigrant brothers that suffer accidents that leave them crippled for life.”
Marlene Cruz a 20 year old Hispanic American whose family helped with the care of Quelino stated, “I use to think that Christ hospital was a good place-- but now after what they have done to Quelino-- I feel outraged that this hospital would do something to a person just for not having papers.”
Julie Contreras, LULAC National Immigrant Affairs Commission stated, ”While the President, Senate and Congress of this nation allow the immigration laws to remain broken—human beings who come to this country to work hard for a better life become disposable waste for Corporations like Advocate Health & Hospitals.”
U.S. hospitals who receive Medicare reimbursements must provide emergency care to a patient until they're stabilized and a plan for discharge is filed, under federal law.

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