Hospital Mergers
There's a growing trend of buyout of secular hospitals by faith-based non-profit organizations. As a result, access to comprehensive reproductive health care services is in jeopardy. In Colorado, this is being played out with the pending buyout of Exempla health care facilities in Boulder and Jefferson counties, where Lutheran and Good Samaritan medical centers would be purchased by the Catholic-based Sisters of Charity of Leavenworth, KS. It's estimated that half-a-million Coloradans could lose access to comprehensive reproductive health services as a result of this transaction.Because of Sisters of Charity's Catholic affiliation, there's concern about the loss of a wide range of reproductive health care services because of Catholic medical directives that ban provision of those services, including: abortion surgical sterilization, including tubal ligation at the time of caesarian-section delivery birth control counseling provision of birth control prescriptions provision of emergency contraception,* which can prevent pregnancy if taken within 120 hours of unprotected sex termination of ectopic pregnancies
Catholic Medical Directives that prohibit provision of reproductive health care services are summarized in this document, produced by MergerWatch, a New York-based advocacy group (see especially p. 23). MergerWatch also provides background information about the impact of mergers between secular hospitals and religiously affiliated foundations. If you're concerned about the loss of reproductive health care services in your community, contact us. *Colorado law requires all health care facilities that treat sexual assualt survivors to provide information to assault survivors about the availability and use of emergency contraception; however, statute does not require dispensation of emergency contraception.
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