The Threat to Patient Choices

Hospital "Merger Mania"

     Trends in the health care industry are forcing competing hospitals in the same or neighboring communities to consider working together. Through full mergers or joint ventures and affiliations, hospitals are agreeing to combine (and usually streamline) their administrative and medical services. In theory, this can benefit the public by helping to preserve community hospitals that otherwise might succumb to financial pressures.

Potential Culture Clash

     But when one of the hospitals undergoing such a merger is operated by a religious institution that adheres to anti-choice doctrine, the news for consumers can be very bad indeed. Individuals seeking reproductive health services may find these have been banned or severely restricted in the merged hospitals. End-of-Life choices may also be restricted.

     In many communities, for example, one of the merging hospitals is a Roman Catholic facility governed by a set of directives issued by the National Conference of Catholic Bishops. Those "Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Facilities" spell out which health services can and cannot be provided based on whether or not they are deemed "morally and spiritually harmful." In a merger, these directives may be imposed on a non-Catholic hospital, leaving patients with no choice.

What Hospital Executives Say

      Many CEOs at nonreligious (secular) hospitals insist that they had no choice but to agree to follow restrictive religious rules to achieve the merger deal. Without the merger, they say, one or both of the hospitals would close. As a result, key reproductive health services simply disappear, negotiated away by hospital executives intent on completing merger talks. In other communities, patients have been forced to rely on "don't ask, don't tell" policies in which their doctors are able to provide outlawed reproductive health services in local hospitals as long as no one in authority finds out.

Preserving Services and Patient Choices

     Reproductive health care advocates across the country have formed coalitions with physicians, pro-choice clergy, people with HIV/AIDS, rape crisis counselors, senior citizens and other groups to protest hospital mergers that would impose one religious perspective on the entire community's health care. These coalitions have organized on a grass-roots level to reach their communities and their hospitals. They have called upon hospital boards and public officials to ensure that vital services are not sacrificed to complete business deals.