NEW YORK – Dr. Grey Burlinger treated high blood pressure on Wednesday delayed care due to fear of immigration enforcement, a Queen’s Primary Care doctor said. His anxiety isn’t the only man whose wife has stage 4 cancer, Ballinger said.
“People’s blood pressure is regularly much higher than normal,” Ballinger, who uses their/their pronoun, told USA Today. “The queen’s fear among immigrants is heartbreaking.”
Many of Ballinger’s hospitals serve a high immigrant population in one of the most diverse regions in the United States, but are concerned about the threat of attacks by immigrants and customs enforcement agents. Officials in New York City have tried to present facts and dispel the myths circulating online about ice behavior, but this has not alleviated concerns.
He also revoked the ban on targeting sensitive areas such as hospitals, schools and churches, as President Donald Trump fulfills his campaign promise to deport immigrants with his criminal history. Lesseria of the community said fewer people are prominently in waiting rooms, school yards and mosques.
Immigration rights advocates condemned their right to basic services.
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“This wasn’t about safety and security,” Murad Awawdeh, president and CEO of the New York Immigration Union, said at a rally at St. Mark Episcopal Church in Manhattan on Thursday. “This is about cruelty.”
Some clinics say their waiting rooms are open
In Manhattan’s Hell’s Kitchen area, Ryan Health Clinic has fallen into the waiting room since Trump took office, a federally-qualified health center patient services representative and a member of the healthcare worker union SEIU 1199. One Hugo Roman said. The clinic recently provided an influx of asylum seekers to New York, but fewer people have made appointments.
Clinic and hospital staff have guidance if ICE arrives for someone and are currently trying to navigate the patient’s rights with a judicial warrant for agents to arrest someone. When asked about their behavior in the healthcare facility, ICE did not respond to requests for comment. Immigration experts and lawyers USA Today said it is unlikely to target people in schools, hospitals, churches and other settings.
A few days before Trump took office, New York City officials issued guidance instructing public hospital staff what to do if the ice enters the facility in search of people. City Health + Hospitals memos obtained by USA Today included information on contacting immigration contacts and making copies of warrants or subpoena.
However, the memo states: “Please note that it is illegal to intentionally protect people in the United States from detention. You should not actively try to help people avoid being spotted on ice.”
Ballinger, who is at Queens Public Hospital, received the same note. They said providers clearly must follow the law, which raises concerns about how doctors and nurses care for patients.
“We are in a changing land,” they said. “I really don’t know how this applies to patients in important scenarios.”
For example, Ballinger is about patients with ventilators, women in labor, or patients who have just given birth to a child?
“The fundamental part of the doctor-patient relationship is the fact that patients feel safe with me,” Ballinger said.
On Thursday, New York City and state officials gathered at Kings County Hospital in Brooklyn to protest the orders of public hospitals. In a statement, mayoral candidate Sen. Zellnor Myrie said the guidance could “threate people” and could prevent them from seeking life-saving care.
City officials said in a statement that they encouraged patients to seek care before a serious illness or emergency occurs.
“Our focus is always on the safety of our patients and employees,” a statement from Health + Hospitals said. “The policies we sent to all staff have taken clear and understandable measures when enforcement agents enter the facility, and by ensuring that they understand the law, we are able to ensure safety for staff on the frontline every day. I guarantee that
“Glove-off” approach
Seth Chandler, a foundation professor at the University of Houston Law Center, said hospitals must navigate “new glove-off immigration enforcement” and patient privacy and traditional hospital respect for orderly hospitals .
Reviewing New York City documents, Chandler said officials were trying to gain the basis for the presence of ice in the facility. It’s healthy advice to not hug or hide anyone who is illegally present in the US, a federal crime, he said. Staff must also comply with the Federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or the HIPAA, which protects personal health information without patient consent.
“There are some meticulous cases where hospital staff have to decide whether HIPAA will give them enough shields to tell ice agents. They’re in,” he said.
Providers need to risk standing at HIPAA, he said. “On the other hand, the hospital may be right. If they are charged, they may win, but the hospital doesn’t want to go that path.”
Still, sensitive areas like hospitals may not hide in hospitals, and given that immigrants without legal status tend to not go to hospitals frequently anyway, ice behaviour It’s likely to happen, he added.
Care for happiness, not immigrant status
In the Chicago suburbs, Leah Kim Yi, director of immigration law at a legal aid clinic in the north suburbs, said that institutions such as hospitals and churches need to remind people of the protections offered under federal and local or state law. He said there is. For example, seeking medical care can lead to permanent damage.
“They care about your happiness, not your immigrant status,” she said.
Still, for a mother like Monica, 35, there is a need for planning and caution for everyone who will be picking up her two US-born children, from school to medical appointments.
Refusing to use the last name for fear of immigration enforcement, Monica postponed her actions on her childhood arrival. She has been in the country for 29 years, but there is no path to citizenship until her eldest son, 11, turns 21.
For now, DACA is protected, but Trump has previously tried to end it with his first term. He has already cut programs such as temporary protection status.
Her children overheard immigration conversations while working for a nonprofit.
“Their next question was, ‘Are you at risk?’,” she told USA Today on Thursday at Upper Puse, St. Mark Anglican Church in Manhattan. “That’s not the case for now,” she said.
Her children asked who else was at risk, and she dropped the list. They can be placed in detention centres or sent back to their home country.
“But our purpose is not to know,” she said. “Our aim is to be as careful as possible. To avoid that.”