THE SUPREME COURT (SC) has dismissed a petition to declare unconstitutional a law holding health workers liable for the death of patients not admitted because they cannot pay a deposit, ruling that the petitioners lacked standing.
The petition was filed by an association of hospitals and clinics.
In a decision promulgated on Nov. 6, the court ruled that the members of the Private Hospitals Association of the Philippines, Inc. (PHAPI) failed to authorize the association to file the petition on their behalf.
The association sought to overturn Republic Act. 10932, An Act Strengthening the Anti-Hospital Deposit Law. The law holds hospitals and their employees liable for deaths and injuries among patients who cannot be admitted because they cannot pay an advance.
The high court said that while associations have the capacity to sue, they must show it has sustained or might sustain direct injury.
Under the law, associations count as third parties and to avail of a third-party exception, an association filing on behalf of its members must be duly authorized by the members.
“In this case, while petitioner successfully averred that it is a non-stock, nonprofit organization, existing under the laws of the Philippines and identified its members being the sole national organization of purely privately-owned clinics, hospitals or other health facilities in the Philippines, dedicated to the management and concerns of private hospitals in the country, it failed to demonstrate that ample authority had been extended to it by its members to file the instant petition,” the court said.
“Petitioner therefore cannot benefit from the third-party exception to the requirement of locus standi (legal standing),” it added.
“In the absence of an actual and direct injury, any pronouncement by the Court would be purely advisory or sheer legal opinion, in view of the mere hypothetical scenarios which the instant petition presents,” the court said.
RA 10932, reinforcing Batas Pambansa 702 which bars hospitals from demanding deposits before admitting and treating patients, presumes liability against the hospital or clinic and its officials, health workers, and employees involved in the death or permanent injury of a patient, or the loss of an unborn child, due to refusal to admit a person who cannot pay an advance.
It also expands the scope of “basic emergency care” to include treatment of women in labor.
In its petition, PHAPI claimed that the law violates “substantive due process” as it imposes “an untenable duty to actually prevent death, permanent disability, permanent injury to or loss of an unborn baby or its non-institutional delivery and to sufficiently address an emergency situation and in case of a woman in active labor, to ensure the safe delivery of the baby,” when physicians “are not assured of a positive outcome.”
The association also said that the presumption of liability for deaths and injuries contradicts the Constitutional protection of presumption of innocence. — Vann Marlo M. Villegas
