Federal Lawsuit Could Put Michigan Elective Surgery Medical Practices Back in Business After COVID-19 Shutdown

As background, Whitmer’s March 10, 2020, state of emergency declaration effectively shut down health care facilities offering procedures that are considered “non-essential.”

But according to the lawsuit — filed May 12, 2020, by the Mackinac Center Legal Foundation on behalf of four Western Michigan medical providers and a man who was scheduled for a March 20 knee surgery until Whitmer’s order put a halt to it — the executive orders “are unconstitutionally vague; they violate procedural and substantive due process; and they violate the dormant commerce clause.”

Further, patients are in “agonizing pain” or have been forced to wait too long for care, to the point where their condition “has progressed far beyond a state in which it would have been easily treatable. … For example, patients are obtaining surgery only after their gallbladder is gangrenous or their appendix is ruptured, instead of obtaining care when their condition was in a much less severe state.”

Dr. Randal Baker of Grand Rapids-based Grand Health Partners, which is one of the plaintiffs, told The Washington Times that the elective-procedure ban, and its resulting backlog of surgeries, “is now a time bomb.”

In addition, per the complaint, “medical providers are on the brink of financial ruin, facing extreme revenue shortages caused by the Governor’s order forcing the postponement or cancellation of so-called ‘non-essential’ procedures. Thousands of healthcare workers across Michigan have been furloughed or laid off.”

The plaintiffs seek preliminary and permanent injunction of Whitmer’s executive order, allowing these medical centers to continue their normal business operations.