Orlando hospitals won’t bill nightclub shooting victims

Orlando Health and Florida Hospital won’t be charging victims of the Pulse nightclub shooting for their medical care, the hospitals said in statements Wednesday.

The main hospital in the Orlando Health chain, named Orlando Regional Medical Center, treated 44 victims of the attack, which left 49 people and the shooter dead.

Hospitals will instead consider state and federal money, as well as victim funds such as the One Orlando fund and means-tested programmes like Medicaid, to meet their bills.

Florida Hospital, another hospital where 12 Pulse victims were treated, is not billing insurance companies at all, ABC News reported. Their total unreimbursed costs are greater than $5 million.

The attack killed 49 people and injured more than 50 others, making it the deadliest mass shooting in modern USA history. It will send bills to health insurers for patients with coverage – whatever isn’t covered will be absorbed by the hospital chain, a spokeswoman told the Orlando Sentinel. The fact that shooting victims face massive medical bills in the first place is “an indictment of our society”, he says.

Orlando Health CEO David Strong released a statement calling the shooting a “horrendous tragedy”.

According to the Orlando Sentinel, the families of the nine people who died at Orlando Regional will not be charged either.

“During this very trying time, many organisations, individuals and charities have reached out to Orlando Health to show their support”.

One victim is still in hospital, more than two months after the attack. This being America, guns being guns, and men being bad, odds are good a woman was shot in a parking lot by her estranged husband and rushed to Orlando Health or Florida Hospital. The hospitals have said that they will work with victims who need follow-up surgeries and treatment.