There is something unsettling about the death of a street dweller on the sidewalk after she refused medical treatment that was offered to her while she was in an ambulance.
News reports said a 35-year-old woman died after refusing to be taken to a hospital by an ambulance that witnesses had called. The woman was bleeding after a stillborn birth on the sidewalk on Thursday, August 15, 2024.
The woman declined to be taken to the hospital and offered to sign a waiver to protect the emergency personnel from liability. She got out of the ambulance, reportedly striking a doctor and shouting at him on her way out. She died on the sidewalk near the area where she had been picked up.
The reports also said the woman did not want to go to the hospital because she believed they would only make money off her and experiment on her. Despite assurances that they would only clean her stomach and uterus at the hospital at no cost, she insisted on being let off the ambulance and then became aggressive.
Cebu City Acting Mayor Raymond Alvin Garcia ordered an investigation into the incident the next day. He tasked the city administrator’s office, along with the departments on social welfare and services and transportation at City Hall, to look into the case after receiving initial reports of possible lapses in responding to the patient’s emergency.
Such investigation cannot focus solely on the issue of street dwellers or the need to move the homeless in the city into temporary housing. The probe should also consider why the woman, who was clearly in need of immediate medical care and not thinking clearly, was not kept under control until the ambulance reached the hospital. When she died after getting out of the ambulance, the reports said that the woman may have bled out as the baby’s placenta had not yet been expelled.
She was clearly in need of medical intervention when she was picked up on the sidewalk, but she managed to escape from the ambulance.
Patients generally have the right to refuse treatment, even in an ambulance and during a medical emergency. However, the person refusing treatment must be made to understand the consequences of their refusal and must sign a document stating that they indeed understand the risks.
Based on the accounts, it appears the woman cannot be considered mentally competent to decide to refuse treatment. There are grounds to investigate what happened, as it resulted in the woman’s death.
She may have been a street dweller and may have already produced several children beyond her capacity to care for them, but she was a person who was in a life-threatening situation and needed help.
The woman’s family obviously does not have the resources to file a case, but authorities should investigate and determine if what transpired was legally and ethically acceptable.