Hospital progress最新文献

Clarence Herbert, 55, stopped breathing following routine surgery in August 1981. Though a respirator restored his breathing, the lack of oxygen had caused severe brain damage, and Mr. Herbert was in a coma. Whether he could recover beyond a vegetative state was not known. Two days after her husband was placed on the respirator, Mrs. Herbert authorized the withdrawal of all life-support means. Mr. Herbert died six days later. Charges of murder by deprivation of treatment against the two attending physicians were dismissed in a lower court, a decision that was upheld in the state appeals court. Because court accounts are unclear, it is impossible to judge whether withdrawal of treatment was moral in this case. This case, however, raises a question about life-sustaining treatment in general. What is the moral criterion for withdrawal: quality of life or quality of treatment? The quality-of-life principle removes the obligation to take life-sustaining measures when a person's life does not or will not meet certain standards. Quality of treatment permits the withdrawal of even minimally burdensome treatment if it is considered useless. Though the California case appears to rest on these principles, withdrawing treatment from a person in a permanent coma, such as Mr. Herbert, implies that the quality of life is so low that life is not worth preserving, if the patient has no potential for conscious life, others have no duty to preserve it. This judgment may be acceptable in a terminal case when treatment truly is useless; however, withdrawing treatment that is useful in prolonging life cannot be justified.

To meet spiraling costs, tax-exempt hospitals increasingly are operating businesses unrelated to direct patient care. Knowing which activities may be open to challenge by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is essential to avoid the unrelated business income (UBI) tax. Three criteria must be met for an activity to be taxable as UBI: It must constitute a trade or business; It must be regularly carried on; and It must be unrelated to the organization's exempt purpose. The Internal Revenue Code and IRS rulings clearly exclude the following areas from UBI taxation: Activities performed by unpaid volunteers (e.g., hospital auxiliaries' fund-raising dinners and bazaars and the operation of thrift stores); Operations conducted for the convenience of the organization's members, students, patients, or employees (e.g., gift shops, cafeterias, coffee shops, parking lots, lounges, vending machines, pharmaceutical sales to inpatients and emergency room outpatients, and research activities for students' benefit; The sale of merchandise that has been received by gift (e.g., flea markets, baked goods sales, book sales, and rummage sales); Investment income such as dividends, interest, annuities, royalties, certain rents, and capital gains from the sale of investment assets; Gifts or contributions made directly to the facility; and Bingo games that are conducted commercially. Areas which may be subject to UBI taxation, or in which there have been controversial or contradictory court rulings, include: Pharmaceutical sales to the public or private physicians' patients; and Laboratory services provided to private physicians for treating their patients. IRS private letter rulings, though not precedential, have excluded from UBI taxation the x-ray income from a hospital's branch facility and rental income from property leased for use as a clinic or medical office building that is substantially related to the hospital's exempt functions. Private letter rulings have subjected to UBI taxation the income for a professional standards review organization's private review activities and debt-financed income from property that is not substantially related to the organization's exempt purpose.