The chain of hospitals that was afraid to offer admitting privileges to doctors who performed abortions are being investigated for their own potentially corrupt emergency room practices.

The Jackson Women's Health Organization (Trip Burns/Jackson Free Press)

Of the seven local hospitals that turned down Dr. Willie Parker and his co-worker’s requests for admitting privileges to the hospital’s emergency rooms—a requirement of Mississippi’s new TRAP law—five belonged to Hospital Management Associates Inc., a Florida-based chain of hospitals. Now that company is being investigated for its own emergency room policies.

According to the Jackson Free Press, a 60 Minutes investigation has unveiled a number of whistleblowers in the chain’s hospitals claiming that they were encouraged to route patients into the emergency room when it wasn’t medically necessary as a means of boosting the company’s profits. The chain is being investigated by the U.S. Department of Justice for the practice.

“That really just bolsters that this admitting privilege thing is such a fraud,” JWHO owner Diane Derzis told the Jackson Free Press.

No wonder the HMA hospitals were so intent on not aggravating local government officials by accepting the doctors.