Hospitals: licensure.

Existing law provides for the licensure of health facilities, including general acute care hospitals, by the State Department of Public Health. Existing law requires emergency services and care to be provided to any person requesting the services or care, or for whom services or care is requested, for any condition in which the person is in danger of loss of life, or serious injury or illness, at any licensed health facility that maintains and operates an emergency department to provide emergency services to the public when the health facility has appropriate facilities and qualified personnel available to provide the services or care. Existing law prohibits the transfer of a person needing emergency services and care from one hospital to another for any nonmedical reason, unless specified conditions are met, including a requirement that the person be examined and evaluated by a physician and surgeon. Existing law defines active labor to mean labor in which either there is inadequate time to effect safe transfer to another hospital prior to delivery or the transfer may pose a health and safety threat to the patient or the unborn child. This bill would require, notwithstanding the above-described prohibition, for purposes of providing emergency services and care to patients with conditions related to active labor presenting to the emergency department of Stanford Hospital and Clinics, that Stanford Hospital and Clinics and Lucile Packard Children's Hospital at Stanford be treated as a single licensed facility if the 2 hospitals have entered into a specified agreement and other specified conditions are met. These conditions would include a medical determination that the patient may be transported safely and the patient has not refused transfer. The bill also would make findings and declarations regarding the necessity for a special statute. This bill would declare that it is to take effect immediately as an urgency statute.