The ACLU of Michigan filed a complaint Oct. 25 with HHS, against Grand Blanc, Mich.-based Genesys Regional Medical Center and its parent company, St. Louis-based Ascension Health. The complaint alleges the hospital violated provisions of the ACA when it denied a physician’s request to perform a postpartum tubal ligation on patient Jessica Mann, according to the article.
The complaint alleges Genesys Regional and its parent company receive funding from CMS and must therefore follow the provisions outlined by the ACA. ACLU officials argued the hospital violated provisions that prohibit discrimination on the basis of sex in any healthcare program or activity receiving federal funds, according to the article.
According to the complaint, physicians attending to Ms. Mann advised her to undergo the procedure directly after the birth of her third child in 2015. Genesys Regional had stopped performing the procedure, except in limited cases, in 2014. Ms. Mann’s OB-GYN reportedly requested an exemption for Ms. Mann, but was denied.
In refusing the request, a hospital administrator “recommended that Ms. Mann deliver her third child at Genesys and have the tubal ligation at a later time in a different hospital.” Ms. Mann alleges the hospital’s declination caused significant emotional harm, according to the complaint.
Genesys officials declined MLive‘s request for comment. Officials from Ascension Health said in a statement to MLive that “as a Catholic healthcare system, [the institution] follows the ethical and religious directives of the Church…[and that the health system] can’t comment on this patient’s particular case.”
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