Washington
Related: About this forumPeople for Health Care Freedom: fighting the religious takeover of hospitals
--in Skagit County. I've posted other links to this group under Health Care Events, but this looks like an ongoing issue needing its own thread. http://www.democraticunderground.com/10821351#post17
http://www.healthcare-freedom.net/take-action.html
Governor Inslee has called for a reform of the process whereby hospitals obtain permission to partner, affiliate, or merge with other hospitals.
On May 21st, the ACLU sent a letter to Governor Inslee, signed off on by ten organizations (including ours), asking that the governor place a six-month moratorium on hospital affiliations that result in changes in ownership, operation, or management. Yesterday Governor Inslee responded to the request by letter saying, “I am very concerned for the potential of these [hospital] relationships to lead to restrictions in constitutionally protected care for Washingtonians.” He goes on to say that, although his office does not have the legal authority to issue a moratorium, “I have asked my staff to fully investigate the issues raised in your letter,” and “I believe the state should use its legally available tools to ensure a more transparent, thorough, and systematic review of these proposals.”
The process by which a hospital obtains state permission to partner or affiliate with another hospital is called the Certificate of Need (CoN) process and is administered by the Department of Health (DOH). Stating that the CoN process needed to be updated and modernized, he directed the DOH “to immediately begin rulemaking to update the CoN process” so that the process will examine the actual “effect of these transactions on the accessibility of health services. . . .” He also directed the DOH to “collect and make available relevant hospital policies related to end of life, reproductive services and patient non-discrimination.” This is vitally important because, at this time, patients have no way of knowing whether a hospital withholds certain medical procedures based on religious doctrine until they are in the hospital or clinic seeking the service.
The governor has ordered the DOH to begin the process of reforming the CoN rules by July 3rd and report back to the governor on its progress by October 31st, an unusually fast timeline. Meanwhile, we all need to keep urging our hospital commissioners to:
1.Avoid any loss of reproductive and end-of-life rights by partnering with a non-religious healthcare entity; and
2.Put their own moratorium on making a decision until the state agencies solve this problem because, otherwise, they may find themselves embroiled in litigation.
Please follow this link for commissioners contact info.
Thank you for your growing support,
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Wounded Bear
(58,662 posts)being carried out by one of the biggest and oldest multi-national corporations in the world, the Catholic Church.
I'm glad to see Gov Inslee moving this one on the fast track. Hopefully, we can retain vital services.
eridani
(51,907 posts)he hospitals hold monthly meetings that are open to the public and these are our few opportunities to weigh in. People for Healthcare Freedom needs you to help sustain the movement for a secular partnership. This is the time to make sure that hospital CEOs and commissioners all witness the growing groundswell of support for healthcare access and choice. The July meeting times and locations are listed below.
Hospitals Location
July 17th at 6:00 PM
Cascade Valley Hospital
Rainier Conference Room
July 18th at 7:15 AM
Island Hospital
Cypress Room, lower level, Island Medical Center
July 26th at 8:00 AM
Skagit Valley Hospital
Cascade Conference Room, first floor near Kincaid St. entrance
Please come to the meetings 15 minutes before the scheduled time. We encourage you to bring signs (no larger than chest-sized) which express your personal concerns for preserving our healthcare choices. We will bring buttons, and People for Healthcare Freedom signs.
We need YOU to show up in force. Please invite as many friends, supporters and allies there as you can! Numbers matter to Hospital District Commissioners who must answer to their constituents for the choices they make. Let’s convince them by our presence that the majority of their constituents care deeply about this issue and want healthcare unrestricted by religious interference.
Please direct any questions about these events to Marshall Goldberg. Thank you for your support at this critical time.
People for Healthcare Freedom
Our mailing address is:
People For Healthcare Freedom
69793 Dexter Lane Marblemount
Marblemount, WA 98267
Light refreshments provided...
eridani
(51,907 posts)We have become a force to be reckoned with! The commissioners of all three hospitals--Skagit, Island, and Cascade Valley--have booked McIntyre Hall, the largest venue in Skagit County, for a public forum on the hospital partnership issue.
After a long period of silence, the commissioners will finally speak publicly about their process of choosing a new partner and will give the public the opportunity for comments and questions. This our best--and probably last--chance to give the commissioners feedback before they make their decision at the end of August. We must tell them that protecting patients’ rights and preserving healthcare choices should be the paramount factor in their choice of a new partner.
Unfortunately, the commissioners chose to give us only five days’ notice of this forum, so we urgently need you to join us in the following actions:
· Please invite your friends, family, and neighbors to attend this meeting. McIntyre Hall holds 750 people and we want to fill it up.
· Make small signs (standard 8.5 X 11 is good) to hold up while you are seated in order to make your viewpoint clear. We will provide some, but hand-made signs show even more commitment.
· Join us for an hour of picketing outside McIntyre Hall from 4:00-5:00 before the meeting. We want the media, passing motorists, and the commissioners entering McIntyre Hall to see a crowd of people demanding medical services unlimited by religious doctrine. Again, homemade signs have the greatest effect, but we will have some signs on hand.
· Come prepared to speak--tell your story and state your wishes to the commissioners.
Thank you for being there on Wednesday!
McIntyre Hall at Skagit Valley College in Mount Vernon (2501 East College Way)
eridani
(51,907 posts)On a Wednesday evening, July 31st, with minimal notice, over 600 people filled McIntyre Hall to show their concern about the future of healthcare in Skagit, Snohomish and Island Counties. This was an amazing showing. Our community clearly stood together around protecting our healthcare from regional or religious control. Within just a few months our petitions to the Hospital Commissioners, requesting constitutional protections and access to legal, safe and medically appropriate care, have gained nearly 3,000 signatures.
The Hospital Commissioners and CEOs are now scheduled to choose their partner by the end of August. The exact date for this decision is unknown.
On behalf of all all the people that have signed the Citizens’ Advisory Petitions, People for Healthcare Freedom will present a copy of the signed petitions at each of the three Hospital Commissioner meetings.
We hope that you can attend these meetings and show your support in person.
Dates & Time
Hospitals
Location
August 15th at 7:15 AM
Island Hospital
Cypress Room, lower level, Island Medical Center
August 21st at 7:15 AM
Cascade Valley Hospital
Rainier Room, second floor, Cascade Valley Hospital
August 23rd at 8:00 AM
Skagit Valley Hospital
Cascade Conference Room, first floor near Kincaid St. entrance
Thank you for the almost daily letters to the editor, expressing concern over religious restrictions and healthcare monopolies.
We encourage you to keep writing letters and asking questions of the Commissioners, and we will all keep fighting to protect our constitutional and state healthcare rights and preserve our healthcare choices.
Again, we thank you for being a part of this movement and we will see you at the Commissioner meetings.
People for Healthcare Freedom
Our mailing address is:
People For Healthcare Freedom
69793 Dexter Lane Marblemount
Marblemount, WA 98267
eridani
(51,907 posts)The Skagit Valley Hospital and Island Hospital Commissioners (and their consultants) have all said the same thing: it was the pushback from the community and, especially, the turnout at McIntrye Hall that made them realize that our Skagit community will not accept any limitation of medical services based on religious doctrine (the Ethical and Religious Directives (ERDs) and the Statement of Common Values (SCV). For this you should be very proud.
Skagit Valley Hospital believes that it has come up with an ERDs/SCV-free way to partner with PeaceHealth by keeping all services that would be touched by the ERDs separate from any joint ventures with PeaceHealth. We see some potential problems with that approach, but we cannot think of any other community that has managed to get this far in keeping the ERDs at bay in the face of an affiliation with a Catholic healthcare entity. The most that other communities have accomplished has been to end up with workarounds that banished the ERDs-prohibited services from their hospitals and clinics. We have demanded that those services stay in our hospitals and clinics and the commissioners have agreed with us. The Skagit providers have been promised by by their CEO and commissioners that they will have no restrictions on providing reproductive and end-of-life services to their patients. So, while we are disappointed that Skagit did not choose a secular partner, we celebrate the victory of keeping all ERDs-prohibited services in our hospital/clinic. Our job from now on with Skagit will be to keep monitoring the contract negotiations process to make sure the final contract actually meets the promises that the commissioners have publicly made to their employees and to us.
Island Hospital has decided to postpone their search for a new partner until they can review all options, this time with the help of a community advisory committee. We applaud them for doing what we have urged all the hospitals to do: pause, consider, ask more hard questions, and include the community in the discussion. We have believed all along and still believe that all three hospitals have violated the spirit (and probably the letter) of the Open Public Meetings Act by holding all substantive discussions about a new partner outside of the hearing of the community. We applaud Island Hospital for taking this step of including the community in its next series of deliberations. We don't know what this community advisory committee will look like or how it will be chosen, but we are excited to watch and support this process. Kudos to Island Hospital for listening to our plea to slow down and to include us.
Cascade Valley Hospital alone has chosen the option of full affiliation with PeaceHealth. Presumably, this means that the ERDs-forbidden services will be banished from their hospital and clinics. It is not clear to us how that can be done in a hospital that has full maternity services, especially in light of the recent Attorney General opinion holding that all public hospitals that provide maternity services must also provide abortion services. We will continue to engage in Cascade's process and to attempt to prevent loss of services in that community.
You should be proud. It was your participation and activism that allowed Skagit and Island to hold on to reproductive and end-of-life rights, at least for now. The process is far from over and People for Healthcare Freedom will continue to keep you informed and alert you to opportunities for intervention. Meanwhile, take a well-deserved bow.
eridani
(51,907 posts)10/30, Town Hall Seattle, 7-9pm
Washington hospitals have been merging with religious health care corporations at an alarming rate. Under these new partnerships, religious doctrine is dictating which services can and cannot be provided or discussed -- such as birth control, fertility treatments, and end-of-life health care options. If pending mergers are completed, nearly half of the hospital beds in Washington state will be in religiously affiliated hospitals – more than any other state in the country.
ACLU of Washington is committed to ensuring all Washingtonians receive health care free of religious restriction. With so many mergers pending, now is the time we can have an impact. We are dedicating significant resources to this effort and have hired a full-time staff person to lead the statewide reform.
We are offering a free public forum on October 30th with a panel of experts on what these mergers mean for you and your communities. I hope you will join us and help spread the word by inviting friends, neighbors and colleagues to join you!
eridani
(51,907 posts)Date:Wednesday, October 30, 2013
Time
:00 PM - 9:00 PM
Location:Town Hall Seattle
1119 8th Ave
Seattle, WA 98101
eridani
(51,907 posts)http://catholicwatch.org/debunking-assertion-sj-hospital-district-didnt-support-maternity-care/
In the wake of the WA AG opinion that hospital districts which fund maternity care must also fund other reproductive health services on a substantially equivalent basis, the San Juan hospital taxing district seems to be doubling down on the assertion that “No maternity services are provided at PeaceHealth and no maternity services were provided or funded at IMC either.”
The motive is simple. PeaceHealth gets 95-97% of taxpayer funds available for health care services and has a 50-year contract with the district, and apparently, neither PeaceHealth nor the district believe that those funds should be used for maternity care or other reproductive health services.
It’s a crazy, ridiculous position to take just on its face, and it becomes even crazier when you realize that people who KNOW what services were available at Inter Island Medical Center are now lying about the true scope of those services.
In fact, until her untimely death in 2007, the medical director for Inter Island Medical Center was a female physician with a publicly stated interest in women’s health. It’s troubling that any of the doctors, staff, or hospital district board members who KNOW that the set of services listed below were available would claim now that they were not, and it becomes one more thing for public officials (and the courts) to consider as this case moves forward.
eridani
(51,907 posts)Over the past few years, Washington state’s liberal voters have been on quite a roll. Same-sex marriage? Approved. Assisted suicide? Check. Legalized pot? That too. Strong abortion protections? Those have been in place for decades.
Now, though, the state finds itself in the middle of a trend that hardly anyone there ever saw coming: a wave of mergers and alliances between Catholic hospital chains and secular, taxpayer-supported community hospitals. By the end of this year, the ACLU estimates, nearly half of Washington’s hospital beds could be under Catholic influence or outright control.
Many of the deals have been reached in near secrecy, with minimal scrutiny by regulators. Virtually all involve providers in Western Washington, which voted heavily for same-sex marriage last November and the Death with Dignity Act in 2008. . . .
And yet more and more hospitals there — sustained by taxpayers, funded by Medicare, Medicaid, and other government subsidies — could be bound by church restrictions on birth control, sterilization and abortion, fertility treatments, genetic testing, and assisted suicide.
eridani
(51,907 posts)Nearly 50% of WA state hospital beds are controlled by Catholic ideology that prohibits contraceptive counseling, contraceptive methods, abortion and end of life "death with dignity", all of which are legal in WA State. Some businesses refuse to include the same legal health care services in their company health insurance plans. Some pharmacies refuse to dispense certain legal contraception products. Some health care providers discriminate against LGBT families.
WA State Senate Bill #5586 is a step in the right direction.
That's why I signed a petition to The Washington State House, The Washington State Senate, and Governor Jay Inslee, which says:
"Pass WA state law to prohibit religious organizations and businesses from denying legal health care services based on their religious ideologies."
Will you sign this petition? Click here:
http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/prohibit-denial-of-legal?source=s.em.cp&r_by=398275
Thanks!
My start would be: KUOW in Seattle, KBCS in Bellevue, KPLU in Tacoma, The Seattle Weekly, SeattlePI.com, the Everett Herald, the Olympia paper, Crosscut.com in Seattle. Hopefully Martha can get the press release out to these folks, or she may have already.
eridani
(51,907 posts)Governor Inslee has issued a directive requiring increased scrutiny and transparency of hospitals whose affiliations are changing. The WA State Health Dept. will hold a hearing on this directive Nov. 26 at 1:00 PM atthe Departmentof Health, Point Plaza, East Rooms 152-153, 310 Israel Road S.E. Tumwater, WA 9850
"In response to the Governor Directive 13-12, the Department of Health is amending Certificate of Need (CoN) rules to address health care facility affiliations, corporate restructuring, mergers and other arrangements. These types of transactions would require prior CoN review by the department andwould ensure the community will not lose access to services as a result of the new organizational structure. The department is also amending the hospital licensing rules to improve transparency for consumer information and the public's ease of access to hospital information".
This action would apply only to new affiliations, while previously only the sale of a public hospital triggered this requirement. Although these proposed rules do not solve the problem of existing religious restrictions, they are a step in the right direction.
Your voice needs to be heard at this hearing or by your commenting on line directly to the Health Dept. before Nov. 26th at https://fortress.wa.gov/doh/policyreview/ (look for "Certificate of Need and Hospital Licensing Regulations Governor's Directive " the 2nd & 3rd ones down)!
I intend to be at the hearing, present our petition and testify. Please join me. http://www.moveon.org/event/events/create.html?action_id=276 .
2) Please forward our petition to anyone you think might be interested or affected by the Religious Restrictions on Health Care to give them the opportunity to sign. More signers = more power. Check out the refined version. http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/prohibit-denial-of-legal?mailing_id=16975&source=s.icn.em.cr&r_by=398275
3) Please find and contact your State Senator and House Members as soon as you can at http://www.leg.wa.gov/Pages/Home.aspx . They need to hear from you.
4) I intend to also deliver our petition to both the WA Legislature's Senate Health Care & Wellness Committee and the House Health Care Committee and will let you know when that is scheduled. Also to Governor Inslee. We'll make a big event out of it.
5) Your letters to the editors of all of WA's local newspapers will help too. We need to get the word out since few people know this Religious Restriction take-over is happening. The gist of the issue is here: http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/prohibit-denial-of-legal?mailing_id=16975&source=s.icn.em.cr&r_by=398275
To further educate yourself and take action in your local area, below are internet links to info and to organizations that are actively working this issue. They need your support if we are to be successful in this effort. Democracy is a participation sport. Be an athlete!
So now it's up to you! Thanks in advance from thousands of your current and future fellow Washingtonians, who will benefit but won't ever know we're doing this, for all your efforts.
Here's the Catholic Bishop's Health Care Directive - http://www.usccb.org/issues-and-action/human-life-and-dignity/health-care/upload/Ethical-Religious-Directives-Catholic-Health-Care-Services-fifth-edition-2009.pdf
Senate Bill #5586 - http://apps.leg.wa.gov/billinfo/summary.aspx?bill=5586&year=2013
American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) - http://aclu-wa.org/overview-restrictions-health-care-religiously-affiliated-medical-facilities & http://aclu-wa.org/myhealthca
Plad Parenthood - http://www.plannedparenthood.org/ppgnw/take-action-washington-23854.htm
Compassion & Choices - www.CompassionWA.org
NARAL - Pro-Choice Washington - http://www.prochoicewashington.org/
Legal Voice - http://legalvoice.org/
Merger Watch - http://www.mergerwatch.org/
Catholic Watch - http://catholicwatch.org/
Americans United for Separation of Church & State - http://augreaterseattle.org/ & http://www.au-southsound.org/
NW uu Justice Network - http://www.nwuujn.org/
NW UU Voices - http://www.uuvoiceswa.org
Making progress happen, together!!
Chuck Bean, Petition Author
eridani
(51,907 posts)But Demos seems to have been caught up in another misunderstanding, too. A Brooklyn native who has lived in Durango since 2008, he said he became a Mercy employee in July 2011, when his private practice group was bought out by another group that eventually became part of Mercy. He can’t recall whether he knew what Mercy’s policies were on abortion: “Perhaps I should have known, but I didn’t.” And he had more than the usual reason to be cautious about a patient who might have Marfan: Many years ago, he said, he treated another pregnant woman with the condition who died. Not to have discussed the option of abortion with someone who might suffer from the disorder “would have been malpractice,” he said.
But hospital officials apparently saw it differently. Demos was reprimanded and told (in the words of the complaint) that he was “not permitted to recommend an abortion, nor is he permitted to even discuss the possibility of terminating a pregnancy with a Mercy Regional patient, regardless of the circumstances.”
Later, Mercy Regional’s chief medical officer, John Boyd, assured the patient in writing that the hospital would “provide education to all our employed providers, reminding them that they should not recommend abortion — even to patients who may have serious illnesses,” the ACLU’s complaint says, quoting his letters. Boyd also reaffirmed that under The Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services, Mercy Regional’s staff was “precluded … from providing or recommending abortion.”
eridani
(51,907 posts)With the alarming trend of Catholic health system takeovers of hospitals and clinics around our state, many health care providers are now subject to religious directives that keep them from delivering the best standards of care.
How many? Which ones? We can’t know for certain because hospitals are not currently required to report that information to the state agencies we depend upon to protect patients.
Join us at a public hearing in Tumwater, WA on Tuesday, November 26 at 1pm to call on the Department of Health to strengthen rules that would require hospitals to be more transparent about whether they are able to meet a patient’s needs. Sign up to attend so we can keep you up to date on changes to the time and location.
http://org2.salsalabs.com/o/5757/p/salsa/event/common/public/?event_KEY=69193
Department of Health
310 Israel Road SE
Point Plaza East
Tumwater, WA 98501
Can’t make it on Tuesday? Then follow this link to leave a comment with the Department of Health- Tell them that we want hospitals to be open and honest about what care they will and will not provide to their patients.
http://org2.salsalabs.com/o/5757/p/dia/action3/common/public/?action_KEY=15824
Patients deserve to know if they can access a full spectrum of reproductive health at the hospitals in their area or if that care will be withheld based on religious directive. They need to hear from you so please join us for the public hearing on Tuesday or submit comments online.
Thank you for all you do and have done in this long battle to ensure access to reproductive rights.
Sincerely,
Tiffany Hankins, Field Director
NARAL Pro-Choice Washington
eridani
(51,907 posts)Tamesha Means, 30, of Muskegon, Mich., claims in a lawsuit that she received negligent treatment from a Catholic-run hospital that abided by religious directives instead of appropriate medical care when she miscarried in 2010.
A Michigan woman who suffered a dangerous, painful and prolonged miscarriage when she was 18 weeks pregnant is at the center of a lawsuit that claims she was denied appropriate treatment by a Catholic hospital guided by religious, not medical, concerns.
The American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of Michigan are suing the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops on behalf of Tamesha Means, 30, of Muskegon, Mich., according to a lawsuit filed Friday in U.S. district court in eastern Michigan.
The suit comes amid growing numbers of mergers between Catholic hospitals and non-religious systems in the U.S. and it argues that the Bishops’ directives — particularly those that ban abortion — result in negligent treatment for certain patients.
“They have an obligation to ensure that the directives do not increase harm to women’s health and that women have the information they need,” said Louise Melling, an ACLU spokeswoman.
The lawsuit claims that Means, then the 27-year-old mother of two children, received negligent care at Mercy Health Partners hospital in Muskegon after her water broke in December 2010. She visited Mercy Health Partners, the only hospital in her county, three times.
Means says she was given medication and told to go home and wait for the pain to get better. On a third trip, as the hospital again prepared to send her home, she miscarried and the fetus was delivered feet-first in a painful and prolonged breech delivery, the lawsuit says.
“Each time I went into the hospital, the same thing happened,” Means said via an ACLU spokeswoman. “They should act like it’s their mother or sister or daughter they’re treating. I pray to God someone stops this from happening again. My life could have been taken. I was in a very dangerous situation.”
Because of the Catholic-run hospital’s medical directives, which prohibit abortion, Means was not told that the child had “virtually no chance of surviving” and that continuing the pregnancy would endanger her health.
eridani
(51,907 posts)Jennifer (a pseudonym) is a health professional and mother of two in Washington State. She has provided care for pregnant women in both religious hospitals and non-religious ones, but she happened to be working at a Catholic hospital when she had a miscarriage herself, between her first and second child. Because this Catholic hospital was the only option for care in her area -- as it is in many areas -- she ultimately wound up there for treatment. It did not go well.
Catholic healthcare networks have expanded significantly in recent years. They now contain one out of every nine acute care beds in the U.S. In some states, where they are best established, they account for about 1/3 of the care. In Washington, Catholic health networks are expanding rapidly by buying non-Catholic hospitals and merging their facilities. If all mergers go through, nearly 45 percent of Washington's hospitals will be Catholic.
Jennifer had been experiencing heavy vaginal bleeding for over a week when she went to her physician's office. He told her she was miscarrying and discussed her need for a dilation and curettage (D&C) to stop the bleeding and protect her health. A D&C is a procedure to empty the uterus; the same technique is used for both miscarriage management and abortion.
Abortion, unsurprisingly, is firmly prohibited in Catholic hospitals (along with contraception, sterilization, most fertility treatments and related services). Care must comply with the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services written by the U.S. Bishops. Jennifer's physician was not Catholic himself (Catholic hospitals employ and serve religiously diverse people), and the care is paid for by public funds and private insurance, not the Church. Nonetheless, her doctor was hesitant to schedule a D&C -- even one for a miscarriage -- in their Catholic hospital. She saw his resistance as him not wanting to attract the attention of the hospital's religious authorities:
I can see the factors that probably played into it. I think it was a combination of not wanting to do a D&C, probably not wanting to open that particular can of worms about whether it was okay to do a D&C. Because a scheduled one is even harder to get done in that hospital than one in the ER... if there's a D&C on the schedule for a possibly viable pregnancy, then the Ethics Board gets involved.
Due to her heavy bleeding, Jennifer's pregnancy wasn't viable, but there was a chance that the fetus still had cardiac activity. Preferring not to plead with the Ethics Board about the necessity of the doing a D&C, her doctor ordered a transfusion to address her extremely low iron levels from all the bleeding, and advised expectant management, which involved waiting for Jennifer's body to expel the pregnancy on its own. The transfusion raised her iron levels, but she still wound up in the hospital 12 hours later, as the bleeding continued. She knew she needed a D&C. Unfortunately for her, things did not move quickly in the emergency room.
It might not be completely clear to the lay reader -- or the typical patient -- where Catholic doctrine slowed down her treatment. But it was clear to Jennifer, since she worked in obstetrics. She knew they were trying to make sure the fetus had died before doing the D&C, so the miscarriage treatment would not be perceived by the Catholic hospital's Ethics Board as an abortion. Jennifer recalled,
They did so many ultrasounds. They ended up doing, I think, three, although I may have missed one. And I remember telling them over and over again, "This is not a viable pregnancy. I've been bleeding enough to need a transfusion for a week. This is not viable." And they're like, "Well, we just need to make sure." And I'm like, "Have you found any cardiac motion?" "No. But we need to check again because maybe we missed it. It's very early in your pregnancy."
Even knowing that the Catholic prohibition on abortion would complicate things, the delay was much longer than Jennifer expected. While there was no way at this point to save the pregnancy, she nonetheless ended up with three to four ultrasounds over seven hours in the emergency room to verify the fetus was dead. By the end of all that, her iron levels dropped so low she needed a second blood transfusion.
After the ultrasounds and the second transfusion, the D&C was performed in the operating room under general anesthesia. Her procedure went safely, and Jennifer moved on to try again getting pregnant, still hoping for a second child.
Unfortunately, transfusions carry risks. There are the well-known ones that people fear such as blood borne infections and transfusion reactions, but what happened to Jennifer as a result of the transfusion was both dangerous and less well-known. She was transfused with blood with Kell antigens, which in her case because her husband was already Kell positive, was grim; it meant that her next pregnancy was at risk for sudden fetal demise.
Jennifer and her husband endured an excruciatingly stressful pregnancy, desperately waiting and watching for problems.
The thing about Kell antibodies is that they're extremely unpredictable... basically, you can have a totally healthy fetus one day, and you can have a fetus in profound cardiac -- basically malfunction. They just stop being able to do anything with their excess fluid and they die. They die of congestive heart failure.
She explained, "They really didn't know what to do... We basically crossed our fingers." She remembers holding a joyous celebration when they arrived safely at the viability mark (approx. 24 weeks gestation), but they continued to be on edge until the very end as their daughter made it successfully to term.
Nonetheless, Jennifer continued to suffer the consequences of the transfusion as the Kell status of the pregnancy also influenced how she was able to give birth.
I ended up being [C-]sectioned a second time with her because I was Kell sensitized. I was planning a VBAC (vaginal birth after C-section), and with a VBAC... you have to go into spontaneous labor. So we were waiting on that and waiting on that and waiting on that, and [my physician] was getting more and more nervous... He said, "Well, I'm recommending a C-section." So, yeah, she went to term, but she was born by caesarean, which has, obviously, its own risks.
Because of the fear of Kell-based sudden fetal death, Jennifer had a second cesarean, which is a major surgery and can make for an especially difficult recovery if when you already have a child to care for. Thus Jennifer added her C-section as another negative outcome of the care for her miscarriage years earlier.
Transfusions present risks. C-sections present risks. Both are necessary and life-saving at times. But Jennifer would have preferred not to endure those risks purely because of the hospital's religious commitments, especially since those commitments were not her own. Had Jennifer not had so much obstetric knowledge, she would not have necessarily known that in a non-Catholic hospital she would have been offered a D&C at the outset (before the transfusions, before the seven hours of unnecessary ultrasounds). What are the chances that the average patient could understand how Catholic doctrine hindered standard treatment for miscarriage management in this case and caused unnecessary suffering?
The burning question from a variety of outside observers of the controversial problem of Catholic hospital expansion in the U.S., including those on both sides of the debate is: If there is really a problem, why don't we hear it from patients? Why don't they sue? Where are their voices in this matter? Everyone wants to know including those who defend the U.S. Bishops' right to restrict care and those who are concerned about patient autonomy and welfare.
I hope my research collecting patient experiences will shed light on these questions. For now, based on my previous research and Jennifer's story, I can think of three possible answers: 1) patients who don't work in obstetric care don't fully understand how their care was affected by doctrine (i.e. might have differed in a non-Catholic hospital); 2) when patients do understand they don't want to cast blame on health professionals who were doing their best to care for them given the institutional religious constraints; and/or 3) patients don't want to be known in their communities for complaining about personal health care experiences that can be highly emotional and potentially stigmatizing.
The last two were true for Jennifer. In the end, she didn't utter a word of complaint, because this was her workplace and the only hospital in town. She remained frustrated about the unnecessary ultrasounds, transfusions, and general health risks she endured due to the religious restrictions, but once her second child was born healthy, she moved on. She didn't want to bring negative attention upon herself or her colleagues, whom she respected and trusted were doing their best for her given their constraints. She didn't want her colleagues to resent her or suffer because of her. She might not have understood how her care was negatively impacted by doctrine if she wasn't a health care provider herself, but the very fact that her professional life was intertwined with the hospital also restricted her willingness to speak about it.
The effects of the doctrine on care are complex and merit a better response than telling women they can get their reproductive health needs met elsewhere. Ultimately, institutions providing ob-gyn care must be held to the same standards regardless of their religious affiliation -- and if not -- who will make sure patients understand how their care may be compromised?
eridani
(51,907 posts)There were probably 80 - 100 people at the WA Health Dept. Hearing on hospital mergers including Reps from the SEIU, ACLU, NARAL, Planned Parenthood, Secular Humanists, Catholic Watch, etc, along with 30+ of our MoveOn.org petition signers, a Hospital Administrators Assoc. Rep. and the general public.
Of those testifying, at least 90% expressed that the proposed rules didn't go far enough in requiring transparency of a hospital's contraception and end of life policies, given patients' need to know. Also that the whole issue of the denial of legal health care due to the Bishops' Directives (ERDs) when Catholic hospitals affiliate and merge with secular health care facilities was inadequately addressed in the proposed rules.
The Hospital Administrators Assoc. expressed that the proposed rules were not only not needed but counter-productive and too expensive to implement. Others expressed that the Catholic hospitals have provided significant health services in our state for decades and shouldn't have to yield to another set of government regulations, that abortions and Death with Dignity were red herrings.
Other testimony:
Hospital mergers and affiliations often result in staff reductions, changed staffing patterns, pay freezes or pay reductions, elimination of some legal health services and emphasizing others, all designed to turn the acquired facilities primarily into profit centers rather than primarily health care centers.
Health Care Best Practices should always be primary and not be subject to profit motives.
Catholic Bishops' policies refuse to honor certain provisions of Advanced Directives, so without the patient, patient's family or transporters (EMTs and ambulance drivers) knowing in advance what a particular secular hospital's policies are (Catholic Bishops' policies?), some patients end up inadvertently at the wrong hospital where their legal final wishes are denied due solely to religious dogma. Communities need to know what a facility's policies are so patients don't spend their final days in pain and embarrassing condition, unless they choose to.
Doctors and other health care workers are required to sign allegiance to the Catholic Bishop's Directives (ERDs) to be able to have privileges at Catholic hospitals and this allegiance also applies to their private practice, further restricting legal health services to residents of their communities.
In some parts of the state, due to the Catholic Bishops' Directives, there are no family planning services and there is only skewed end of life care within a 100 miles.
Patient Rights should always come first before religious ideology or insurance company and hospital profits.
MoveOn.org Testimony by Chuck Bean at WA Health Dept. Certificate of Need Hearing Nov. 26, 2013 on behalf of 5,100 signers of a MoveOn.org Petition to " Prohibit the Denial of Legal Health Care Services in WA State" http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/prohibit-denial-of-legal?
mailing_id=17577&source=s.icn.em.cr&r_by=398275 and on behalf of the Seattle Chapter of American's United for Separation of Church and State:
Non-Catholics and Catholics alike increasingly find themselves in situations in which the only health care available is limited by these restrictions, dictated by the US Conference of Catholic Bishops' Ethical and Religious Directives (ERDs).
WA State has the highest percentage of religious control of hospital beds in the U.S. and it is continuing to increase (26% in 2010, 45% so far in 2013).
Hospitals receiving payments from Medicare, Medicaid, direct subsidies from public funds or tax breaks, should be prohibited from denying legal family planning and end of life "death with dignity" services based on religious ideology. The majority of WA voters created the rights to those legal health services and expect WA State government to guarantee that they will be available to all Washingtonians.
The WA State Dept. of Health and County Public Hospital Districts need to ensure that, if a healthcare system is allowed by law to not provide certain family planning and end of life services directly, that that system finds another way for citizens to get those services nearby and refers them to the appropriate place to receive them. The refusing healthcare system needs to pay for all costs of their being provided by another.
Regarding transparency, and in the interest of a patient's need to know, we support the recommendation that a checklist of key reproduction and end of life services be required to be prominently posted by all hospitals on their websites, but not just on their websites which is a limited and specialized window, but also prominently posted in hard copy in their waiting rooms and near their admission desks so folks entering their facilities can also be informed. This posting should be in large print and in lay persons' language clearly indicating the hospital's policies and where any denied services can be obtained, nearby.
eridani
(51,907 posts)MergerWatch and the ACLUare pleased to announce the release of a new report, Miscarriage of Medicine: The Growth of Catholic Hospitals and the Threat to Reproductive Health Care.
The report looks at the increasing number of acute-care hospitals that are Catholic-sponsored or -affiliated and the expansion of Catholic-sponsored health systems in the United States between 2001 and 2011. It discusses the threat this growth poses to patient access to reproductive health services, including information and referrals.
The report further shows the degree to which these institutions rely on tax dollars, even as they limit medical care based on religious doctrine. At the same time, data also indicate that, despite their claims of service to the poor, Catholic-sponsored and -affiliated facilities actually provide only an average amount of charity care and a lower percentage of care to Medicaid patients than any other type of hospital.
In short, this report reveals how Catholic hospitals have left far behind their humble beginnings as facilities established by orders of nuns and brothers to serve the faithful and the poor. They have organized into large systems that behave like businesses – aggressively expanding to capture greater market share – but rely on public funding and use religious doctrine to compromise women’s health care.
Please share this announcement and the link to the report widely!
http://www.mergerwatch.org/storage/pdf-files/Growth-of-Catholic-Hospitals-2013.pdf
Celebrate with us by making a tax-deductible contribution to support MergerWatch through the Network for Good portal of Community Catalyst, our fiscal sponsor. Please designate your gift for MergerWatch.
eridani
(51,907 posts)We are vigilantly attending board meetings for each of the hospitals, as they continue their decision-making and negotiating processes. Here is an update for each:
Island Hospital established a 8 person Citizens Advisory Committee. Taking their jobs, as representatives of the community seriously, each of the committee members interviewed numerous community members. The community was in agreement that the hospitals is much-beloved and the majority of interviewees did not want a religious affiliation. The commissioners are continuing to discuss ways that they might avoid affiliating altogether or avoid affiliating with a Catholic entity in particular. The story is far from over.
Skagit Regional Health is in the process of negotiating with PeaceHealth. Their plan is to design a ‘mid-level’ affiliation, where the hospital and its clinics remain under the control of the board of commissioners and medical service are not impacted by any religious directives (in other words, all areas of medicine involving reproductive health and end-of-life choices would remain solely in the control of Skagit Regional Health). The negotiations are in the early stages and, again, it remains to be seen if this design can be accomplished.
Cascade Valley Hospital is in negotiations with PeaceHealth to design a ‘full-affiliation’ (i.e., PeaceHealth will completely run the hospital). The commissioners attest their intent is for reproductive health and end of life issues to be funded and managed separately, as to avoid the application of religious limitations. They are forthright in saying that they are not yet sure what the mechanism will be for accomplishing this, but that they are committed to it. Once again, the negotiations are at an early stage and the outcome in unpredictable.
State-Wide Efforts
People for Healthcare Freedom continues to be a member of a state-wide alliance of many groups that are working on this issue (ACLU, Planned Parenthood, NARAL/Pro-Choice Washington, Legal Voice (formerly NW Women’s Law Center), National Women’s Law Center, MergerWatch, Compassion & Choices, and PFLAG). We have attended meetings with the governor’s staff, the attorney general’s staff, the Department of Health staff, and the Insurance Commissioner and his staff. From these meeting and a lot of behind-the scene work by members of the various allied groups, several actions are underway:
•to change the rules of the Certificate of Need process to require that all hospital mergers (whether they are called mergers, partnerships, acquisitions or affiliations) will be subject to review by the Certificate of Need Program of the Department of Health;
•to change the rules of hospital licensing by the Department of Health so that hospitals, in their annual reviews, are required to fill out a checklist of services that they will not provide because of religious or other policy, a list that they must then post on their websites;
•to add to the Office of the Insurance Commissioner's rules about the new healthcare insurance networks, which would require networks to assure that abortion and other reproductive health services are offered by the network in every geographic area;
•to introduce legislation forbidding religiously-operated hospitals from interfering with decisions made by a patient and her/his physician (Colorado already has a similar law).
All of these rule making attempts are in process and the outcome is not yet certain.
We will continue to keep you informed as these processes continue.
eridani
(51,907 posts)Next Thursday, February 13th, the House Health Care Committee will be holding a work session on Hospital and Health Care Mergers
It is an important step that the House Health Care Committee is holding a work session on this topic and we would like to pack the room to demonstrate visible, strong support for the protection of comprehensive health care. This work session will help set the tone and frame the debate on religious hospital mergers in 2014 and beyond. We want legislators to hear from us about keeping the right priorities, especially since we think there will be a lot of people showing up who disagree with us.
Planned Parenthood is providing carpool assistance to those who wish to attend. For carpool information, contact Christina Wright, 603-7703 or Christina.wright@mbpp.org.
Where and when:
Health Care & Wellness Committee Work Session
House Hearing Rm B
John L. O'Brien Building
Olympia, WA
Note the work session will start at 8:30, and our portion of the discussion comes second on the agenda.
Thanks so much as always for caring for our community and taking a stand for patients’ rights, no matter what.
People for Health Care Freedom
healthcare-freedom.net
eridani
(51,907 posts)Catholic Hospital Policies and a Fatally Flawed Report
by catholicwatcher
A few days ago, hospitals around WA State were required to submit their reproductive, end-of-life, charity care, nondiscrimination, and access policies to the Department of Health. You can find them here.
Today, Modern Health Care posted an article about the situation, saying that more than half the hospitals did not meet the regulatory deadline. You can find that article here.
Also included in the article is a reference to a DRAFT report from the Office of Financial Management (OFM). That draft relied on an outdated, very limited limited data set (related to tubal ligations) and drew much broader conclusions about whether services were being curtailed. Meanwhile Catholic systems continued their aggressive Embrace and Extinguish strategy of taking over secular systems and then cutting off services.
When Providence took over Swedish, it eliminated “elective” abortion services which included abortion services for high-risk pregnancies. (The types of circumstances where a severe fetal anomaly might not be detectable earlier or where a fetus might run into severe trouble late in the pregnancy.) Abortions where there's a fetal heartbeat now have to be done off-site. Swedish, a secular facility for more than a hundred years was THE place to go in Seattle for high risk pregnancies where termination might be medically appropriate/necessary. Someone I know ran into these restriction and her story was recounted in an article for Seattle’s The Stranger in February of 2013. Swedish is the largest hospital system in the Seattle area.
When Franciscan took over Highline (a network of hospitals/medical centers), it implemented the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care which forbid contraception, abortion, access to Death with Dignity, etc.
When Franciscan took over Harrison in Bremerton, it implemented the ERDs.
When PeaceHealth opened a new hospital/medical facility on San Juan Island (which was touted as an upgrade for an aging medical center), it eliminated access to abortion services, subsidized access to maternity services, and any physician participation in Death with Dignity. The PeaceHealth facility on San Juan Island gets a direct tax subsidy.
PeaceHealth is now in the later stages of implementing partnership agreements with Cascade Valley and Skagit Valley Hospitals, two public hospitals.
In Bellingham, WA, the Catholic bishop asked PeaceHealth to cut off lab services to Planned Parenthood patients; only an outcry from the community kept this from happening. PeaceHealth St. Joe’s in Bellingham gets a special tax break from the city BECAUSE it is a religious entity.
Many of the public hospitals that these Catholic systems are “affiliating with” are restricting services. For example, PeaceHealth is set to take over running United General, a public hospital. The policies they’ve just posted with the DOH (which includes allowing access to Death with Dignity) will soon change to bring them into line with Catholic doctrine.
PeaceHealth also is in a partnership with UW Medicine that calls for expanded Family Medicine training. As evidenced by a recent job posting on Linked In, family physicians at PeaceHealth in Vancouver are required to follow the ERDs. This means UW medical students are learning family medicine in a “restricted” environment, where physicians are restricted from providing legal, medically appropriate services. Those students are essentially learning that you can segregate services based on religious beliefs which have nothing to do with medical necessity or the best care patient standards. UW physicians and medical students are alarmed.
These are a few examples of how and when services are curtailed. But look for the Washington Hospital Association and the Catholic hospitals to continue pointing to a fatally flawed report that contradicts the ACTUAL policies that Catholic health care ministries now enforce on patients and physicians throughout the state.
catholicwatcher | March 26, 2014 at 1:17 am | URL: http://wp.me/p3qzZp-o9
eridani
(51,907 posts)By March 25th all hospitals in WA State are required to post their Reproductive Health Care, End of Life Care, and Non-Discrimination policies on their websites to meet the WA Health Dept.'s new transparency requirements. There are more than 90 hospitals in our state. Many are controlled by the Catholic Bishops' Ethical & Religious Directives (ERDs) that prohibit certain reproductive and end of life health care services that are legal in WA State. And that number is increasing, as is pressure from other anti choice forces
Most likely, you will want to know yourself whether those religious restrictions are limiting the health care services available at your nearby hospital(s), and the general public certainly needs to know, as well. We need your help get the word out.
Because the Washington State Hospital Association has opposed health policy transparency, there may not be a general publicity campaign to inform the public about each specific hospital other than our campaign (below). So it may be up to just us, you and me, to inform our fellow community members. Here's an easy way for us to do it:
We need you to find out if your local hospitals actually did post their policies on their websites.
Can you (the public) easily find them there?
Are they written simply, specifically and clearly so you and the general public can easily understand what reproductive and end of life health care services are available and which are not?
Do the policies deal with contraception counseling and provision of all legal methods of birth control, including condoms, birth control pills, vasectomies, tubal ligations and the morning after pill?
Do the policies deal with fertility assistance?
Do the policies deal with medically necessary abortions? With elective abortions? Both are legal.
Do the policies deal with end of life care (death with dignity and advance directives), which are also legal?
Do the policies declare non-discrimination for LGBTQ, which is mandated by law?
Do you feel confident, after reading them, that you understand whether you as a potential patient will get the medical 'standard of care' you or your family might need, when it's needed and without interference from religious ideology?
We need lots of folks from all across the state who are willing to take an hour or so over the next couple of weeks to go to their local hospital(s)' website(s) and find out. We'll send you a list of the hospitals and their website addresses, plus a simple checklist to use. That's step 1.
We then request that you to send a simple letter to the editor of your local newspaper showing what you found, asking the editor to check out the hospitals' websites themselves and report their findings to the public. We'll send you a listing of the newspapers and their website addresses and a draft letter you can use if you'd like to make your job even simpler.
If you feel this local health care information is important to you, to your family, and to your friends, neighbors and local community members, please reply to this email and we'll send the above along with instructions.
This is both a personal and public service we can all do quickly and simply to make our little part of the world a better place. On behalf of your fellow Washingtonians who don't yet know what's been happening to their health care, Thanks so very much.
Chuck Bean,
Petition author
MoveOn.org
eridani
(51,907 posts)
countryjake
(8,554 posts)Organizations note the official start of their affiliation
http://www.goskagit.com/all_access/peacehealth-united-general-tie-the-knot/article_f4c6eb80-ca2d-5498-b753-51d078d0c2fe.html
SEDRO-WOOLLEY — United General Hospital officials gathered Tuesday morning to officially celebrate a merger with PeaceHealth, which leases and operates United General Hospital.
Now known as PeaceHealth United General Medical Center, the hospital will continue to offer acute and diagnostic care while Hospital District 304's board will focus on preventative care and wellness.*
Pearson said the deadly mudslide in Oso highlights the importance of community hospitals, noting the medical center is currently the closest one to those who live on the east side of the disaster in northeast Snohomish County.
United General Hospital has operated in Sedro-Woolley since 1965 and serves a 2,000-square-mile area that includes most of the county north of the Skagit River and Mount Vernon.
eridani
(51,907 posts)Tamesha Means was 18 weeks pregnant in 2010 when her water broke. The Michigan woman visited a nearby Catholic hospital twice, and was sent home, each time in severe pain, according to a lawsuit filed by the ACLU in December of last year. Doctors at the hospital, directed by Catholic guidelines that forbid abortion, did not tell her that her fetus had virtually no chance of survival or that the safest treatment was to terminate the pregnancy, which was the case, according to the suit. On her third trip to the hospital, after she’d begun to show signs of an infection, the hospital was preparing to send her home again when she miscarried.
While Means’ experience happened in Michigan, women’s health advocates worry that in the wake of an unprecedented number of affiliations in Seattle, this sort of scenario could just as easily happen here—at a hospital or clinic where patients have no idea that Catholic beliefs are steering their health care options.
Across the country, as the health care industry buckles under rising costs, many hospitals are partnering with one another in the hope that scale will help them survive and control costs. In some cases, that means Catholic health care organizations are acquiring secular hospitals or entering into affiliations and collaborations with non-Catholic organizations. And it just so happens that in Washington state, where Catholic health care organizations are in good financial shape, they are taking on a larger share of the system, more than in many other states. This includes recent alliances between UW Medicine and PeaceHealth; Swedish Health Services and Providence Health & Services; and Highline Medical Center and Franciscan Health System.
eridani
(51,907 posts)Representatives of the American Civil Liberties Union, Planned Parenthood, the University of Washington School of Nursing, Compassion and Choices, and Catholic Watch will panel a Forum at the Bellevue First Congregational Church, 752 108th Ave. NE, at 7:00, Thursday, June 19th on Religious Restrictions in WA Health care. The forum is sponsored by the Greater Seattle Chapter of Americans United for Separation of Church and State.
Come and learn firsthand how these religious restrictions on reproductive health and end of life care could affect you.
Admission is free with ample parking.
http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/prohibit-denial-of-legal?mailing_id=22670&source=s.icn.em.cr&r_by=398275
eridani
(51,907 posts)Brother and sister AU Greater Seattle members,
Our chapter-sponsored panel forum last Thursday evening on the issue of secular healthcare systems increasingly being merged and affiliated with Catholic ones was big success. One hundred and eleven people attended and, although we had been warned that they would show up, no anti-abortion protesters attended. Several people told me and my wife that it was the best forum on this subject they had attended, even better than the one that had been held at Seattle Town Hall last fall.
For those of you who couldn’t attend, here is a link to a videotape of the entire event:
I encourage you to share the video link broadly with anyone that you believe might be interested to know about this issue.
A final benefit to the forum is that we are making connections with other organizations that share many of the concerns of Americans United: the ACLU of Washington, Planned Parenthood Votes NW, and Compassion and Choices of Washington.
Although in my opinion the hospital-merger issue is the biggest church-state-separation issue in Washington state, there are others here and around the country that our chapter of AU and others are involved with—in education, prayer in government meetings, religious displays on public property, proselytizing in the military, etc., etc. There are strong and well-funded forces trying to erode or remove the wall of separation between church and state.
I appreciate your membership and support.
Dave Miller, President
Greater Seattle Chapter
Americans United for Separation of Church and State
eridani
(51,907 posts)If your health care provider is Group Heath, this could affect you or someone in your family. We need to insure that we all get properly informed when GHC refers us to facilities that might restrict our care for their religious reasons.
Please take a minute to read the short Resolution below. If you'd like to sign it, please just hit 'reply' and I'll email you a signature form that needs to be hard copy signed and mailed by July 21st. GHC requires 250 hard copy signatures.
If someone you know has Group Health as a provider, please forward this on to them. Time is of the essence.
Thank you for your attention and help.
Chuck Bean
chuckcbean@hotmail.com
Resolution to the Members of Group Health Cooperative.
Whereas we the undersigned member-patients of Group Health Cooperative, believe in the Cooperative’s long commitment to high quality comprehensive health care;
and
Whereas we believe those values may be undermined by affiliations with religious health care providers to which GHC patients may be referred;
and
Whereas legal best medical practices, in some cases, are prohibited by religious directives at those institutions
Therefore be it resolved:
that GHC shall have written policies and procedures to insure that all patients have ready and convenient access to the full range of sound medical practices unrestricted by religious doctrine;
that medical staff will have full knowledge of potential restrictions when referring or sending patients to religiously affiliated institutions;
that Group Health staff will fully inform patients when referring or sending patients to religiously affiliated medical facilities of those potential restrictions.
eridani
(51,907 posts)https://www.aclu-wa.org/news/aclu-urges-wsu-not-allow-religious-doctrine-restrict-health-care-and-education
The ACLU of Washington today urged Washington State University’s Board of Regents not to allow health care and education to be restricted by religious doctrine. The ACLU made the request in a letter sent to the regents in response to a WSU affiliation agreement with the religiously based Providence Health & Services and others to operate as a graduate medical education consortium.
“We understand that there is a shortage of physicians in eastern Washington, and commend WSU’s efforts to address this serious problem. However, these efforts must be consistent with best care medical services and comprehensive medical training, unconstrained by Catholic religious doctrine. As an institution of the State of Washington, WSU must not subsidize or support the restriction of health care on the basis of religious doctrine,” said ACLU-WA Policy Counsel Leah Rutman.
The bylaws of the Spokane Teaching Health Center consortium state that STHC “shall not undertake any activity, nor shall it perform or permit any medical procedure, that offends the moral or ethical values or directives of Providence, including but not limited to, the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services.”
Under the Spokane Teaching Health Center bylaws, STHC is required to abide by the Ethical and Religious Directives (ERDs). These directives forbid or severely restrict many reproductive and end-of-life health services, including contraception, vasectomies, fertility treatments, tubal ligations, abortion, Death with Dignity, and advance directives that are contrary to Catholic teachings. Adherence to the ERDs may also increase the likelihood that LGBT individuals and families will face discrimination in seeking to access health care services consistent with their medical needs.
eridani
(51,907 posts)Last week we had an exciting – and fast! – victory in our ongoing work to protect health care choices from religious interference. ACLU-WA has been monitoring a recent partnership between WSU and Providence to open a new teaching clinic and we found a deeply troubling agreement written into the bylaws.
Just as we fear with secular-religious affiliations, the bylaws stated that the clinic would not allow any procedure that “offends the moral or ethical values or directives of Providence, including but not limited to the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services.” These Catholic directives prohibit counseling on birth control, abortion, vasectomies, fertility treatment and numerous end of life decisions.
As an institution of the State of Washington, WSU must not subsidize or support the restriction of health care on the basis of religious doctrine.
The good news is, just 48 hours after we sent a letter concerning this area in the bylaws, WSU announced they would change them to ensure that no services or information were restricted by religious directives! You can read more in the article below.
Thank you for allowing us to be vigilant and responsive when rights are at stake!
Kathleen Taylor
Executive Director
206.624.2184 ext. 211
901 Fifth Avenue, Suite 630
Seattle, WA 98164
www.aclu-wa.org
eridani
(51,907 posts)Happy New Year!
Two years ago, we formed People for Healthcare Freedom (PFH) because all four of our public hospitals were considering affiliating with PeaceHealth, a Catholic healthcare provider, which would have resulted in our hospitals being subject to the Ethical and Religious Directives of the Catholic Bishops (ERDs).
By the time we found out about the proposed affiliations, it was already too late to stop the United General process, but we are happy to report that the other three hospitals--Skagit, Island, and Cascade Valley--are still independent public hospitals, free of the influence and governance of the Catholic Church.
Part of this is because of your activism: the administration of Island Hospital, for example, has stated plainly and publicly that they heard the strong pushback from their constituents and withdrew from PeaceHealth negotiations for that reason. Skagit Hospital decided to do a partial affiliation with PeaceHealth but declared that, because of community pushback, they would keep control of the hospital and employees so that the ERDs would not be applied. We did not believe that an ERD-free affiliation was possible and so were very relieved when PeaceHealth pulled out of the negotiations. Cascade Valley Hospital chose to do a complete affiliation with PeaceHealth and would undoubtedly have ended up governed by the ERDs if PeaceHealth had not pulled out.
The story is not over. We do not know if our public hospitals will continue to seek partners or whether those partners will be Catholic ones. We have more reason than ever to be vigilant. Currently, the Catholic bishops are cracking down even more on Catholic hospitals, focusing on those that violate the ERDs by providing tubal ligations.
PHF continues to attend hospital commissioner meetings and to keep our finger on the pulse of what is happening in our hospitals. Also, we are a very active member of a larger statewide alliance with the ACLU, Planned Parenthood, NARAL Pro-Choice, Legal Voice, Compassion & Choices and other statewide and national organizations working on this issue. This larger group meets monthly and has active subcommittees which meet more often. PHF also posts articles on our Website and Facebook page. So we are still working every day to keep our hospitals free from religious restriction. We continue to thank you for your interest and support and we will let you know when and if we need the next round of public protest.
Thanks so much as always for caring for our community and taking a stand for patients’ rights, no matter what.
People for Health Care Freedom
healthcare-freedom.net
eridani
(51,907 posts)We would like to applaud the ACLU for the recent lawsuit filed against Skagit Regional Health to protect a woman's right to comprehensive health care. This right was reaffirmed by the Reproductive Privacy Act (RPA) of 1991 and granted by a vote of the people.
The RPA states that, in Washington State, every woman has the fundamental right to choose or refuse to terminate a pregnancy and every public hospital district providing maternity services must also provide “substantially equivalent benefits … to permit them to voluntarily terminate their pregnancies.”
The ACLU has discovered that Skagit Regional Health, while providing full maternity services, does not follow the clear, additional requirement to provide equivalent pregnancy termination services.
Our public hospital district claims that it is fulfilling its obligation by referring women seeking terminations to other facilities, such as Planned Parenthood. This is clearly not the intent of the Reproductive Privacy Act. The Act was passed to assure abortion and contraception in the comfort of our public facilities without potential exposure to harassment by picketers at private clinics. The law was also intended as a hedge against the possibility that private clinics might not always exist in a given community, whereas public health entities will more likely endure.
We ask only that Skagit Regional Health follow the clear wording of the law. We want our hospital to spend money on public health rather than on pointless litigation. If the hospital and its clinics do not currently have available staff to implement the law, they must hire them as they would for any other "hole" in services."
We urge you to email the Skagit Valley Hospital commissioners (administration@skagitvalleyhospital.org) or write:
Commissioners
Public Hospital District No. 1
P.O. Box 1376
Mount Vernon, WA 98273
Ask them to settle this lawsuit by agreeing to provide abortions as the Reproductive Privacy Act requires.
People for Health Care Freedom
healthcare-freedom.net
countryjake
(8,554 posts)now, with the general Commisioners' address you've provided.
Thanks for the info, eridani.
eridani
(51,907 posts)eridani
(51,907 posts)"Annual meeting advisory resolution approved by Group Health voters
A member-sponsored advisory resolution, which reaffirms Group Health’s longstanding commitment to providing a full spectrum of legal, covered, and medically appropriate services, including reproductive health and end-of-life care, has been approved by our voting members. Entitled “Ensuring Comprehensive Care at Religiously Affiliated Hospitals,” the resolution aims to make sure members’ care choices are honored, no matter where they receive care, and that they have the resources to understand their options and get the care that’s right for them."
Voting results and more information
https://www.ghc.org/news/news.jhtml?reposid=/common/news/news/advisory-resolution.html
If you're a member of Group Health (600,000+ Washingtonians are), you will probably want to save each document (3) in the link/ email chain to your computer's hard drive for future reference of GHC commitments.
Your support made this happen.
