Residents, watchdog groups question Harrison's secular status

[Heddi]

http://www.kitsapsun.com/story/news/local/2017/03/04/residents-watchdog-groups-question-harrisons-secular-status/98667468/

BREMERTON — Some new contracts for providers working at Harrison Medical Center include a provision that references Catholic directives for health care, despite assurances from parent company CHI Franciscan Health that Harrison remains a secular institution.

A Harrison contract shown to the Kitsap Sun by a physician on call at the hospital stipulates the provider “shall not cause (CHI Franciscan) or its affiliates to fall out of compliance with the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services.” The directives, which include 72 points of guidance for health care providers established by the church, prohibit some treatments related to reproductive health and end-of-life care.

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Confusion over the Harrison contract language highlights the blurring of lines that has occurred between secular and non-secular institutions as a growing number of Kitsap health care groups align with CHI Franciscan. As one example, The Doctors Clinic, which entered into an agreement with CHI Franciscan last year, now follows the Ethical and Religious Directives and has stopped prescribing physician-assisted suicide medications.

A hot-button topic during affiliation talks between Harrison and CHI Franciscan in 2013, Kitsap residents again raised the issue of religious influence on health care this winter after CHI Franciscan applied for state approval to consolidate hospital services in Silverdale. Attendees at a Feb. 21 certificate of need hearing in Poulsbo said they feared access to reproductive health and end-of-life care is being curtailed as CHI Franciscan expands its presence in the county. The ACLU, Planned Parenthood and four other organizations co-signed a letter to the Department of Health outlining similar concerns.

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According to Harrison officials, the joining of the two health care groups was made easier by the fact the hospital had not performed abortions or permitted physician-assisted suicide to be carried out in an inpatient setting before affiliation. The Ethical and Religious Directives prohibit both practices. The affiliation prohibits Harrison from providing abortions or physician-assisted suicide in perpetuity.
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Harrison policy allows employees to openly answer questions about physician-assisted suicide under the state’s Death With Dignity Act. Providers can only actively participate in Death With Dignity independent from their work at the hospital, and those who choose to participate are not covered under Harrison’s insurance coverage.

Affiliation does not prevent Harrison from providing contraceptives or permanent birth control procedures such as tubal ligation. More generally, hospital officials say the agreement has not limited the scope of services offered at Harrison and instead bolstered the hospital’s capabilities.

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The Catholic health system has acquired, affiliated or partnered with several smaller health care groups in the county since 2013, raising new questions regarding religious influence in care. The most significant coupling came in 2016, when CHI Franciscan announced a professional services agreement with The Doctors Clinic, an independent group of about 80 providers based in Silverdale.

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The only significant change, according to Burghart, is that providers can no longer prescribe physician-assisted suicide medication. As with Harrison, Doctors Clinic employees can independently participate in the Death With Dignity Act.

“That’s the single area that has changed for our physicians,” Burghart said.

[Heddi]

1. Closing Harrison's hospital isn't helping Bremerton

http://www.kitsapsun.com/story/opinion/readers/2017/03/02/closing-harrisons-hospital-isnt-helping-bremerton/98644534/

he route of the Bremerton YMCA’s Resolution Run this winter led down Wheaton Way to Lebo Boulevard, around Lions Park and back to the Y. But I took a slight detour onto Campbell Way, to stride past the office of the surgeon who removed part of my lung last April.

A kind neighbor chauffeured me to post-surgery follow-up visits there until I was fit to drive. That kindness took half an hour: seven minutes from my house, fifteen at the doctor’s, seven minutes home again. Other facilities clustered around Harrison include an imaging center, the clinics of my pulmonologist and my oncologist, all five to ten minutes from home.

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Last year CHI Franciscan Health suddenly closed Vashon Island’s only medical clinic. Until another clinic could open, the ferry schedule was disrupted every time an islander needed urgent care that didn’t warrant an airlift.

When they close facilities, Franciscan spokesmen usually say that their aim is to provide the best possible patient care by consolidating services. They didn’t quite have the nerve to make that claim about the Vashon clinic; instead, their vice president of operations called it “a difficult business decision.”

That’s the point: it’s a business. CHI Franciscan is ultimately a corporation like any other. Healthcare is simply the product it offers, like potato chips or laundry soap. While technically non-profit, Franciscan puts its bottom line before the welfare of either the patients or the community.

Bremerton is Kitsap’s largest city. Yet even as our population expands, our access to medical care decreases. The Doctors Clinic moved all its facilities to Silverdale in 2014, including urgent care. The Naval Hospital still offers urgent care — though unavailable to most of us — but has no emergency room.

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SO much for "go to another hospital" -- rather hard when your only access to other medical facilities is a long drive or a ferry