Weeks after a judge ordered a local hospital to give Ivermectin to a critically ill COVID-19 patient, St. Tammany Health System says the order invites others to ask courts to force hospitals into prescribing or administering unapproved drugs for life-threatening illnesses.
64 YO Charlotte Ratley of Abita Springs died at St. Tammany Parish Hospital on Aug. 21, less than 24 hours after Judge John Keller of the 22nd Judicial District ordered the hospital to administer the drug or let the patient’s daughter, a licensed physician’s assistant, do it.
Ratley’s family said she had been prescribed Ivermectin after her COVID diagnosis but before she was hospitalized, yet St. Tammany Health System refused to administer the drug, an anti-parasitic used mainly for livestock.
Similar suits have been filed in other states.
St. Tammany Hospital said these situations challenge the authority of medical staffs and hospitals to provide safe, quality care and substitutes the judgment of patients for professional judgment. Its filing includes a list of agencies that have raised red flags about Ivermectin’s use for COVID-19, among them the U.S. CDC.
St. Tammany Health Systems is asking the judge to nullify the order he issued last month.
