Lousville Hospital Deal Still Fucks Over Women

No, forcing women to go through two separate surgeries on two separate dates in two separate locations with two separate copays and deductables does not solve the problem.

From the Courier:

Baptist Hospital East will provide a site for University of Louisville doctors to perform tubal ligations that would no longer be permitted at University Hospital and Jewish Hospital if a pending merger takes place and puts the hospitals under control of Catholic Health Initiatives.

“This will ensure our ability to provide reproductive services for our patients after the merger occurs,” Dr. David Dunn, U of L executive vice president for health affairs, said at a news conference Wednesday.

University Hospital and Jewish Hospital will no longer offer sterilizations and other procedures prohibited by Catholic health-care directives after they become part of a new statewide health-care system, which will also include Lexington-based St. Joseph Health System. The system will be controlled by CHI, which is St. Joseph’s parent.

The merger requires approval by Gov. Steve Beshear and the Catholic Church before it can take effect, and public officials in Frankfort and Louisville are studying its possible effect on consumers and taxpayers.

State officials said there are still other concerns, including end-of-life care, that need to be addressed before the merger is completed.

But the arrangement with Baptist would resolve one of the trickiest aspects of maintaining current levels of reproductive care under the merger: how uninsured women who normally rely on University can have their tubes tied in the same surgery as a C-section delivery.
Not only is the Baptist deal a huge burden on women who should be able to get tubal ligations at the same time as their C-sections, but it fails to resolve the broader issues:

• turning taxpayer-supported, public hospital assets and access over to a private, for-profit corporation.
• forcing public hospital patients to suffer the bizarre, unscientific, anti-Hippocratic-Oath rules of Catholic freakazoids.
• allowing the acolytes of a Bronze Age fable to make health care decisions at the biggest public hospital in Kentucky's largest city.

This merger, like privatizing Medicare or Social Security, is so obviously a galactically bad idea that I expect Governor Steve Beshear and Attorney General Jack Conway to announce their approval before the day is out.