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33 replies
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which is an area that is already sorely lacking enough healthcare facilities, considering the vast land area that one hospital provides for.
The Catholic Corp is not building hospitals, at all. Here, it has attempted to buy out the smaller, financially struggling, already-established institutions.
When they got my hospital, there was barely a whimper, but now all who use that facility must abide by the ridiculous supernatural "tenets" and "immorality" guides that its religious owners follow.
Hospital Mergers Reset Abortion-Access Battle by KIRK JOHNSON ~ May 12, 2013
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/13/us/hospital-mergers-in-northwest-raise-issue-of-abortion-barriers.html?smid=tw-nytimeshealth&seid=auto&_r=2&
MOUNT VERNON, Wash. — Politicians seeking to restrict access to abortion, a marked trend this year from North Dakota to Arkansas, tend not to get much traction in this part of the country.
Washington is heavily Democratic, leaning left especially on social issues. A majority of voters even put into law a statutory right to abortion in 1970 — the only state ever to do that. The governor, Jay Inslee, a Democrat, is pushing the Legislature even now to pass a law at a special session on Monday requiring health insurers to pay for elective abortions, another first for the state if it makes it to Mr. Inslee’s desk.
But now a wave of proposed and completed mergers between secular and Roman Catholic hospitals, which are barred by church doctrine from performing procedures that could harm the unborn, is raising the prospect that unelected health care administrators could go where politicians could not.
The merger wave is mirrored around the country, driven by the shifting economic landscape in health care and the looming changes in federal regulation. Previous Catholic takeovers in Kentucky, Illinois and Pennsylvania have made news and drawn scrutiny.
The concentration of mergers here, through happenstance and history — Catholic nuns arrived in Washington with the first waves of settlers in the 1850s — is particularly pronounced. If all the proposed religious and secular combinations go through, almost half of the hospital beds in the state — the highest percentage in the nation, and up from less than a third at the beginning of last year — would be controlled by the Catholic health systems, according to Merger Watch, a nonprofit group in New York that tracks hospitals.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/13/us/hospital-mergers-in-northwest-raise-issue-of-abortion-barriers.html?smid=tw-nytimeshealth&seid=auto&_r=2&
MOUNT VERNON, Wash. — Politicians seeking to restrict access to abortion, a marked trend this year from North Dakota to Arkansas, tend not to get much traction in this part of the country.
Washington is heavily Democratic, leaning left especially on social issues. A majority of voters even put into law a statutory right to abortion in 1970 — the only state ever to do that. The governor, Jay Inslee, a Democrat, is pushing the Legislature even now to pass a law at a special session on Monday requiring health insurers to pay for elective abortions, another first for the state if it makes it to Mr. Inslee’s desk.
But now a wave of proposed and completed mergers between secular and Roman Catholic hospitals, which are barred by church doctrine from performing procedures that could harm the unborn, is raising the prospect that unelected health care administrators could go where politicians could not.
The merger wave is mirrored around the country, driven by the shifting economic landscape in health care and the looming changes in federal regulation. Previous Catholic takeovers in Kentucky, Illinois and Pennsylvania have made news and drawn scrutiny.
The concentration of mergers here, through happenstance and history — Catholic nuns arrived in Washington with the first waves of settlers in the 1850s — is particularly pronounced. If all the proposed religious and secular combinations go through, almost half of the hospital beds in the state — the highest percentage in the nation, and up from less than a third at the beginning of last year — would be controlled by the Catholic health systems, according to Merger Watch, a nonprofit group in New York that tracks hospitals.
MergerWatch ~ Protecting Patient's Rights When Hospitals Merge
http://www.mergerwatch.org/
Sign installers Ean Emery (left) and Brad Gallespy of Sign Post take down the old United General Hospital sign and replace it with a new PeaceHealth United General Medical Center sign on March 28, 2014. On Tuesday, PeaceHealth took ownership of and started operating the hospital in Sedro-Woolley. Mark Stayton / Skagit Valley Herald
http://www.goskagit.com/all_access/peacehealth-united-general-tie-the-knot/article_f4c6eb80-ca2d-5498-b753-51d078d0c2fe.html?mode=image
People for Health Care Freedom: fighting the religious takeover of hospitals posted by eridani
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1082&pid=2074
assholes. 
U.S. Bishops Take Aim at Sterilization by Nina Martin ProPublica, Dec. 30, 2014
http://www.propublica.org/article/u.s.-bishops-take-aim-at-sterilization
The Vatican has an absolute prohibition on sterilization for the purposes of birth control. The U.S. Catholic bishops consider the procedure "intrinsically immoral," on par with abortion. Yet for years, Genesys Health System, a Catholic medical center near Flint, Mich., allowed doctors delivering babies there to tie the tubes of new mothers who wanted to ensure they never got pregnant again.
Genesys's policy wasn't hard to fathom: Performing a tubal ligation immediately after childbirth is the long-established standard of care, especially if a woman is having a cesarean section. "She's already cut open — her tubes are right there," said Sarah Ward Prager, an associate professor in obstetrics and gynecology and director of family planning at the University of Washington Medical School. Subjecting a new mother to a second surgery carries "unnecessary risk," Prager said. "It is simply unethical to say, 'I'm going to make you come back to a different hospital to have another surgery in six weeks because the bishop says I can't tie your tubes right now."
Then, seemingly out of the blue, Genesys reversed course. Starting November 1, sterilization with the "direct" aim of preventing pregnancy — as opposed to for some other medical ("indirect"
reason — was banned. Patients who had planned to have the procedure after childbirth were left scrambling; their irate doctors were, too.
Genesys won't say why it allowed sterilizations to go on for so long or why it has forbidden them now. In a statement to ProPublica, the hospital acknowledged only that it had "updated its policy on tubal ligations to comply with current Church teaching."
But this much is clear: The Genesys decision is almost certainly a sign of things to come.
http://www.propublica.org/article/u.s.-bishops-take-aim-at-sterilization
The Vatican has an absolute prohibition on sterilization for the purposes of birth control. The U.S. Catholic bishops consider the procedure "intrinsically immoral," on par with abortion. Yet for years, Genesys Health System, a Catholic medical center near Flint, Mich., allowed doctors delivering babies there to tie the tubes of new mothers who wanted to ensure they never got pregnant again.
Genesys's policy wasn't hard to fathom: Performing a tubal ligation immediately after childbirth is the long-established standard of care, especially if a woman is having a cesarean section. "She's already cut open — her tubes are right there," said Sarah Ward Prager, an associate professor in obstetrics and gynecology and director of family planning at the University of Washington Medical School. Subjecting a new mother to a second surgery carries "unnecessary risk," Prager said. "It is simply unethical to say, 'I'm going to make you come back to a different hospital to have another surgery in six weeks because the bishop says I can't tie your tubes right now."
Then, seemingly out of the blue, Genesys reversed course. Starting November 1, sterilization with the "direct" aim of preventing pregnancy — as opposed to for some other medical ("indirect"
reason — was banned. Patients who had planned to have the procedure after childbirth were left scrambling; their irate doctors were, too.
Genesys won't say why it allowed sterilizations to go on for so long or why it has forbidden them now. In a statement to ProPublica, the hospital acknowledged only that it had "updated its policy on tubal ligations to comply with current Church teaching."
But this much is clear: The Genesys decision is almost certainly a sign of things to come.
Doctors at an Oklahoma Hospital Were Just Told They Can’t Prescribe Birth Control Anymore Steven Hsieh March 31, 2014
http://www.thenation.com/blog/179102/doctors-oklahoma-hospital-were-just-told-they-cant-prescribe-birth-control-anymore
Catholic hospital administrators ordered doctors practicing in a small Oklahoma city to stop prescribing contraceptives for birth control purposes, according to a report by the Bartlesville Examiner-Enterprise.
The directive would affect all doctors affiliated with Jane Phillips Medical Center, leaving just one OB-GYN who can prescribe birth control in a city with more than 18,500 women.
A spokesperson for St. John Health System, which owns Jane Phillips, says St. John denies giving such an order.
“I was told that my physician has been instructed that they can no longer write prescriptions for birth control as birth control. This effects me because I take birth control as birth control. There are other ways to receive birth control, for example headaches, cramps, excessive bleeding — but I have none of those symptoms,” a local woman, who requested anonymity, told the Examiner-Enterprise.
Doctors were instructed to stop prescribing contraceptive for birth control during a closed-door meeting on Wednesday, according to the Examiner-Enterprise. St. John spokesperson Joy McGill would not comment on the alleged meeting.
http://www.thenation.com/blog/179102/doctors-oklahoma-hospital-were-just-told-they-cant-prescribe-birth-control-anymore
Catholic hospital administrators ordered doctors practicing in a small Oklahoma city to stop prescribing contraceptives for birth control purposes, according to a report by the Bartlesville Examiner-Enterprise.
The directive would affect all doctors affiliated with Jane Phillips Medical Center, leaving just one OB-GYN who can prescribe birth control in a city with more than 18,500 women.
A spokesperson for St. John Health System, which owns Jane Phillips, says St. John denies giving such an order.
“I was told that my physician has been instructed that they can no longer write prescriptions for birth control as birth control. This effects me because I take birth control as birth control. There are other ways to receive birth control, for example headaches, cramps, excessive bleeding — but I have none of those symptoms,” a local woman, who requested anonymity, told the Examiner-Enterprise.
Doctors were instructed to stop prescribing contraceptive for birth control during a closed-door meeting on Wednesday, according to the Examiner-Enterprise. St. John spokesperson Joy McGill would not comment on the alleged meeting.
