NH Senate passes bill that could empower hospitals to arrest family members who argue with doctors

(by Daniel Horowitz | The Blaze) – One of the most appalling humanitarian emergencies in the country today is the state of care in American hospitals. We have witnessed a shocking disregard for patient care, ignoring of science and basic medical norms, forcible use of toxic drugs like remdesivir, denying family members visitation, and discriminating against people based on medical choices, including denying organs to those who don’t get the shots. Yet rather than redressing the inhumane treatment in the hospitals with a new patient bill of rights, a New Hampshire bill now seeks to criminalize those who dissent and debate doctors when they believe the hospital is mistreating their loved one.

File this under Republicans who don’t know what time it is. On March 31, the New Hampshire Senate passed SB 459, a bill that lowers the threshold needed to arrest someone at a health care facility without a warrant. Dubbed the “Workplace Violence Prevention Program,” this bill defines workplace violence as “any act or threat of physical violence, harassment, intimidation, or other threatening behavior that occurs at a health facility, including verbal abuse, without regard to whether the victim sustains an injury, psychological trauma, or stress.”

What happens to such a person? Section 4 allows arrests without warrant if there is probable cause to believe that the person, among other things, will cause problems or “through actual or threatened violence, interfere in the provision of medically necessary health care services.”

In any other era, I wouldn’t think twice about this bill. After all, none of us believe in violence and certainly not directed toward doctors. But where is this bill coming from, and where is it headed, and in what context? I have been inundated with people in distress after doctors refused to talk to them, threw people on ventilators against scientific rationale, blocked medical records, forcibly confiscated prescriptions and vitamins, and often engaged in medical kidnapping by refusing to release the patient upon his request. In other cases, they have called child protective services if they feel the parent is not going along with their novel treatment ideas for a minor patient. Read Full Article >