The COVID-19 crisis has overwhelmed our health care system and severely constrained resources, including the health care workforce. Governor Baker and other state leaders have taken steps to maximize the physician workforce to meet increased demand, but
additional physicians and health care providers will be needed.
Legal liability remains a significant obstacle for those considering how best to lend their services and for those considering altering their practice to assist in the fight against this
pandemic. During this unprecedented crisis, physicians are providing care under extreme circumstances that may require challenging and painful decisions about how to allocate limited and potentially life-saving resources and how to provide the best
clinical care under such severe constraints. Physicians – both those providing direct COVID-19 care and those continuing to provide other medically necessary care – fear an unreasonable increase in civil liability exposure that does not appropriately
reflect the provision of care and clinical decisions made in a crisis situation due to patient surge or scarcity of resources. Although many liability protections exist for volunteers responding to this pandemic on both the state and federal level,
these enhanced liability protections do not apply to most paid physicians.
This action must be taken legislatively, and the Medical Society needs your immediate support to this Call For Action. Please click below to find the contact information for your legislative representatives and email them with the below text to urge them
to pass this critical bill.
Link to find your legislators and their contact information:
https://malegislature.gov/search/findmylegislator
Message to Legislator
I am writing as a constituent physician and member of the Massachusetts Medical Society to urge immediate passage of S.2630, An Act to Provide Liability Protections for Health Care Workers and facilities during the COVID-19 Pandemic, providing civil immunity
from liability for physicians and other health care professionals and facilities providing care during the COVID-19 crisis absent gross negligence or other willful misconduct.
The COVID-19 crisis has overwhelmed our health care system and severely constrained resources, including the health care workforce. Steps have been taken to maximize the physician workforce to meet increased demand, but additional physicians will be needed
and our current physician workforce will be asked to provide increasingly complex care to more patients under challenging circumstances. Legal liability remains a significant obstacle for those considering how best to offer their services. During
this crisis, extreme circumstances may require physicians to make challenging and painful decisions about how to allocate limited and potentially life-saving resources. Physicians - both those providing direct COVID-19 care and those continuing to
provide other medically necessary care - are concerned about an unreasonable increase in liability exposure that does not appropriately reflect the provision of care and clinical decisions made in a crisis situation due to patient surge or scarcity
of resources. Although state and federal liability protections exist for volunteers responding to this pandemic, these enhanced liability protections do not apply to most paid physicians.
At this critical time, we must empower physicians to make difficult decisions that provide the best patient care possible under the most trying circumstances while not later subjecting them to unreasonable penalization through tort provisions written
absent contemplation of such a crisis.
New York, the epicenter of the pandemic in the United States, has provided such protection through Executive Order, while more than a dozen other states have enacted statutes similarly limiting physician liability in a public health emergency. This legislation
strikes an appropriate balance supporting physicians and protecting patients. We respectfully request the legislature take immediate action to safeguard physicians as they work overtime to care for patients and protect public health.
[Feel free to add brief personal/clinical perspective on this issue as applicable]
Sincerely,
