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the_ignored
SFN Addict
2562 Posts |
 Posted - 02/24/2013 : 20:51:56
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This is not good news. Why? They get to enforce their religious views on the staff and therefore on the patients, regardless of whether they're Catholic or not.
Catholic institutions across the nation are merging with secular hospitals, clinics, and even small private practices at an unprecedented rate. Optimists explain that the consolidation and shared infrastructure help reduce costs. Pessimists point out that the aggressive mergers come at a time when Catholic bishops are exerting and expanding their authority. "I see it as a conscious effort to achieve through the private market what they failed to achieve through the courts or at the ballot box," says Monica Harrington, a San Juan Island resident who's spent the last year fighting a Catholic hospital in her town.
Three of the largest health-care systems in the Northwest—PeaceHealth, Providence Health & Services, and Franciscan Health System—are Catholic entities, and they're busy making new deals in our state. According to MergerWatch, a nonprofit that tracks Catholic hospital mergers across the nation, there was a record-breaking 10 mergers announced in Washington State in 2012. |
....To understand Catholic health care, it's important to know the rules that guide Catholic hospitals, otherwise known as Ethical and Religious Directives (ERDs). These directives are drafted and tweaked by the rotating cast of mostly white, mostly celibate bishops couch-surfing at the Vatican. ERDs operate like a code of conduct that medical staff in Catholic hospitals agree to abide by, regardless of whether or not a particular staffer is Catholic. For the most part, the directives aren't suggestions—they're prescriptive.
"Any partnership... must respect church teaching and discipline," one directive states. The church monitors the implementation of these directives through hospital ethic committees overseen by regional bishops like our very own Archbishop Peter Sartain.
Sure, in 43 pages of Ethical and Religious Directives, there's some common-sense guidance to be found. But they're also flush with horrifying detail. As you'd expect, the directives pertaining to women's fertility read like a misogynist romance novel or found art from the Middle Ages: "Catholic health institutions may not promote or condone contraceptive practices." Emergency contraception can only be given to rape victims, and even then only "if, after appropriate testing, there is no evidence that conception has occurred already." Vasectomies and tubal ligations are also prohibited. Egg and sperm donors are deemed "contrary to the covenant of marriage," surrogate motherhood is prohibited because it denigrates "the dignity of the child and marriage," and doctors at Catholic hospitals can't help infertile couples conceive artificially—using their own eggs and sperm—because test-tube babies "separate procreation from the marital act in its unitive significance."
Then there's this: "Abortion... is never permitted."
Not even when the egg attaches outside the uterus and puts a mother's life in danger: "In case of extrauterine pregnancy, no intervention is morally licit which constitutes a direct abortion." |
Fortunately, this is being fought:
Now, fighting San Juan Island's Catholic hospital monopoly has become Harrington's unofficial full-time job. Last year, she spearheaded a 300-person petition to kill the deal before contracts were signed. She helped pack public meetings with skeptical, angry locals. More importantly, when the county's hospital district commissioners finalized a 50-year lease agreement with PeaceHealth last year, she didn't stop talking about inequity. Island property owners are now paying $1 million in annual property taxes to support the hospital. Proponents of the agreement argue that there's no law dictating what entities hospital districts can and can't contract with. Undeterred, Harrington continues to push for the agreement to be renegotiated: She thinks PeaceHealth should only be contracted and paid for the specific services it offers. She thinks PeaceHealth should have to disclose what services it doesn't provide, preferably in bold, red, 16-point type on the door. She thinks PeaceHealth should be held accountable for masquerading as a comprehensive health-care institution, taking taxpayer money, and then refusing care based on religious standards its patients may not agree with. She's contacted her legislators, the state attorney general's office, and the ACLU.
And she's getting their attention.
In February, state senator Kevin Ranker (D-San Juan Islands) introduced a bill that would require new or expanding hospitals in the state to prove that they would provide for, or at the very least refer for, all women's health care, family planning, and end-of-life services. "In rural areas, there aren't many options," Ranker says. "We shouldn't allow the sole health-care provider to limit the legal medical choices you have available."
Especially when these Catholic hospitals are financed by taxpayers, private insurance companies, Medicare, Medicaid, and federal and state tax breaks. |
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>From: enuffenuff@fastmail.fm
(excerpt follows):
> I'm looking to teach these two bastards a lesson they'll never forget.
> Personal visit by mates of mine. No violence, just a wee little chat.
>
> **** has also committed more crimes than you can count with his
> incitement of hatred against a religion. That law came in about 2007
> much to ****'s ignorance. That is fact and his writing will become well
> know as well as him becoming a publicly known icon of hatred.
>
> Good luck with that fuckwit. And Reynold, fucking run, and don't stop.
> Disappear would be best as it was you who dared to attack me on my
> illness knowing nothing of the cause. You disgust me and you are top of
> the list boy. Again, no violence. Just regular reminders of who's there
> and visits to see you are behaving. Nothing scary in reality. But I'd
> still disappear if I was you.
What brought that on? this. Original posting here.
Another example of this guy's lunacy here. |
Edited by - the_ignored on 02/24/2013 20:56:05
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Catholics buying up hospitals in Washington State
