Judge Dismisses Grady Dialysis Suit

By Odette Yousef

Atlanta, GA – Today, a superior court judge dismissed a case that former patients of Grady Hospital's outpatient dialysis center brought against the institution. They filed the suit after Grady closed the clinic, claiming that they have no viable alternative to receive the life-saving care.

WABE's Odette Yousef reports.

It was a major blow to the two-dozen or so who showed up at Fulton County Court this morning to support the patients. But lawyer Lindsay Jones told them afterward not to lose hope:

JONES: We plan on appealing the decision and taking it up to the next level, and that would be most likely the court of appeals for the state of Georgia.

Grady has been paying for many of the patients to receive dialysis at private clinics in the area, but has told the patients that will end January 3. Jones says that's in spite of the fact that Grady's contract with the private provider holds through September 2010. He hoped the judge would enforce that.

Reina Andrade was one of the named plaintiffs on the lawsuit the 32-year old is uninsured, undocumented, and now, scared:

ANDRADE: She's a person that loves life, wants to live, does not want to return to her home country in Honduras, because she knows that she will die.

Many of the patients, like, Andrade, maintain that returning to their home country would mean a switch to sub-standard care, and even death. They cite stories they've heard of other patients who used Grady's outpatient center, who died on returning to Mexico.

Grady Hospital officials say they've heard the same, but, says spokesperson Matt Gove:

GOVE: We don't believe that the patients' deaths were tied to discontinuation of services at Grady.

Gove says Grady knows of 5 dialysis patients who have died in 2009 - only two of them took the hospital's offer to help them move back to Mexico. He says 5 dialysis patients died in 2008, as well, and says that's not an unusual number given the nature of end-stage renal disease.

Odette Yousef, WABE News.