at a catholic hospital, a dispute over what a doctor can do and say

[xchrom]

http://www.nationofchange.org/catholic-hospital-dispute-over-what-doctor-can-do-and-say-1384785558



Nov. 14: This story has been updated with comment from Dr. Demos.

A dispute between a Colorado cardiologist and the hospital he works for has highlighted a growing area of concern among patient advocates and civil libertarians: gag rules imposed on doctors and nurses by Catholic health-care providers.

In a complaint filed Wednesday, ACLU of Colorado accused Mercy Regional Medical Center in Durango, in the remote southwest corner of the state, of illegally telling doctors and other employees that they cannot discuss abortion with patients, even if a pregnancy threatens a woman’s life. The complaint was filed with the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, which oversees the state’s hospitals.

“Mercy Regional’s moral objection to abortion does not exempt the hospital from complying with [state and federal] laws,” the ACLU’s Sara Rich wrote to the health department, “and the hospital cannot invoke its religious status to jeopardize the health and lives of pregnant women seeking medical care.”

In a statement, hospital spokesman David Bruzzese said the complaint was “based on inaccurate information.” He said Mercy takes “very seriously the care we provide to our patients.”

[LuvNewcastle]

1. Pregnant women endanger their lives by going to Catholic hospitals.

[xchrom]

2. +1 - getting hard to avoid them, though - depending on where you live. nt

[SidDithers]

3. Maybe Pope Photo-Op can help theses women with "the healing power of compassion"...nt

Sid

[HockeyMom]

4. My ectopic pregnancy - "We don't do abortions here"

"We will give you something to stop the bleeding". That is what they said to me. They did NOTHING for me; no sonogram, no IV, no blood pressure monitoring, BUT they gave me a pregnancy test. My doctor had warned me with, "You have to go IMMEDIATELY but I cannot get you into the non-sectarian hospital". Even as a former catholic I knew their outrageous doma, but I was still unprepared for how far they would take it. You would not treat an ANIMAL they way they treated me.

Do not go to a catholic hospital with an ectopic pregnancy.

[LuvNewcastle]

6. That is outrageous and unforgivable.

[caraher]

7. Wow

My understanding from my Catholic school days had always been that abortion to save the life of a mother was not prohibited. So I did a little Googling and that turns out to be half-true; "indirect" abortion is OK, through pretzel logic that runs like this: if we excise a section of Fallopian tube that just so happens to contain an embryo, and it just happens to be incapable of survival, that's not murder because it was an indirect effect of the treatment needed to save the mother. But if we administer a drug or surgically extract just the fetus, that is murder, because the life-saving effect comes (more?) directly from killing the fetus.

Maybe they can go back to debating the number of angels that can dance on the head of a pin, rather than pointing to distinctions without a difference in defense of the indefensible...

[HockeyMom]

8. "Manage the care"

so it can have the chance to work itself out. Never heard of that one? Read between the lines of that. Let the tube ruputre. Embryo or fetus will die by itself(no abortion) and we can then work to save the woman. That sums up what happened to me, although not being put on an IV, or monitoring blood pressure, is managing care?

[caraher]

9. "Mismanage the care," is more like it

pretty fancy way of saying "do nothing and hope for the best"

Sorry you had to go through that nightmare!

[gblady]

5. my area is experiencing....

a take over of hospitals by Catholic organizations...in my county, the only hospital is now being purchased.

I went to a discussion a couple weeks ago about our death with dignity law and how it works,
and a main concern was how the buy out of several local hospitals and organizations, such as one local hospice, would affect ability to be compliant with the law. Also of concern is women's reproductive rights.