§ 8.01-225.01.Certain immunity for health care providers during disasters under specific circumstances.
Chapter 3. Actions · Article 21. Miscellaneous Provisions · Last amended 2022 · Last verified July 16, 2026
Full Text of § 8.01-225.01
Plain-English Summary
Health care providers ordinarily owe an ongoing duty to patients already under their care, and walking away from that duty can expose them to an abandonment claim. Subsection A addresses what happens when a declared disaster forces a provider’s hand: if a local emergency, state of emergency, or public health emergency has been declared, and the provider becomes unable to keep providing care to a patient because the provider is responding to that disaster, a public-health order, or a resulting resource shortage, the provider is immune from civil liability for abandonment-related injury or wrongful death, as long as the provider was not grossly negligent or engaged in willful misconduct.
Subsection B protects a different actor: hospitals and other entities that grant emergency credentials or practice privileges to providers responding to a disaster. If a state or local emergency has been declared and the hospital followed credentialing procedures consistent with an approved national accrediting organization’s standards for emergency privileges, the hospital is immune from civil liability arising from that credentialing decision, again absent gross negligence or willful misconduct.
Subsection C defines the key terms — disaster, emergency, public health emergency, resource shortage, and the rest — mostly by cross-reference to Virginia’s Emergency Services and Disaster Law, § 44-146.16. Subsection D confirms this immunity supplements, rather than replaces, other immunities under state or federal law, including the broader emergency-care immunity in § 8.01-225.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can a doctor be sued for abandoning a patient during a declared emergency?
Not if the abandonment resulted from the doctor’s response to the disaster, a public-health order, or a resource shortage caused by it, and the doctor was not grossly negligent or engaged in willful misconduct — subsection A immunizes that situation.
What has to be declared before this immunity applies?
A local emergency, state of emergency, or public health emergency, as those terms are defined by cross-reference to § 44-146.16 and, for public health emergency, this section itself.
Are hospitals protected for credentialing outside doctors during a disaster response?
Yes, if a state or local emergency has been declared and the hospital’s credentialing process for granting emergency practice privileges follows the standards of an approved national accrediting organization, subsection B immunizes the hospital from liability tied to that credentialing decision.
Does this immunity apply if the health care provider was grossly negligent?
No. Both subsections A and B condition the immunity on the absence of gross negligence or willful misconduct.
Does this section replace other emergency immunity protections, like the Good Samaritan statute?
No. Subsection D makes clear the immunity here is in addition to other state and federal immunities, including § 8.01-225 and Virginia’s Emergency Services and Disaster Law immunity under § 44-146.23.
Amendment History
2003, c. 507; 2008, cc. 121, 157; 2014, c. 320; 2022, c. 617.