In a move that is blatantly divisive the small city of Humboldt, Saskatchewan has scared away doctors, and divided the residents after the Catholic hospital board decided birth control procedures [for women, I haven't heard if vasectomies are ended], are no longer to be performed.
The situation is complicated in that even though it’s technically a Catholic run hospital, there is no other facility within an hour’s drive, and it is funded nearly entirely by the general public.
I think it’s unfortunate that Catholics are going to lose their hospital that was promised to them several decades before this, but times have changed [for the better] and there’s no longer significant public support for backwards thinking in hospital policy when it comes to birth control. As Jennifer of CBC Blue Sky put it, she’d be concerned for the well being of any homosexual couple who sought treatment at Humboldt hospital. Until the hospital board gets its head screwed on straight, and puts patients’ wishes above Catholic doctrine, I’d be concerned about doctors being distracted by archaic policies, too.
The caveat they place on performing the procedure isn’t a suitable “compromise”, since it still lets doctors discourage and refuse women seeking the surgery. I’m not sure there is a compromise, other than the Catholic residents in favour of the procedure to fund their own doctor willing to treat patients based on their interpretation of Catholic teachings. As long as public money is paying for the hospital, it is violating the rights of non-Catholic citizens of this province who should be able to access health services in Humboldt.
It’s also very upsetting that at least two doctors were lost over the needless meddling of the board. These days in NDP run hellcare, it’s routine for Saskatchewan hospitals to lose their emergency room service for days or weeks on end due to unforeseen doctor shortages. Broadview Hospital was the latest casualty of this, and Preeceville, and Kamsack have been affected in the past months too. Arcola was in 2006 as well. Or as unwell, as the health pun would have it.
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Ross | 21-Dec-06 at 11:33 pm | Permalink
you would think that the NDP, who are supposed to be a progressive socially responsible party would put the kaibash on this backwards religious bullshit.
unfortunately the NDP are more old fashioned, and stuck in the past than any other political party out there in my opinion.
Saskboy | 21-Dec-06 at 11:55 pm | Permalink
Agreed, they have become what they fought against almost 50 years ago - conservative and opposed to health care reform.
Ashley | 22-Dec-06 at 1:23 am | Permalink
Vasectomies are still available in Humbolt last I heard.
skdadl | 22-Dec-06 at 6:03 am | Permalink
I’m actually in favour of accommodating Catholic hospitals on the very few special grounds on which they have historically been accommodated in Canada.
The problem here is lack of services — I agree that it is wrong that the people of Humboldt have no other public facility to turn to for some legal medical procedures. In a healthy health-care system, Humboldt would get another, strictly public facility.
It just isn’t news that Catholic hospitals have never performed some standard procedures, although I don’t know the specific history of tubal ligations. In a bigger city, for instance, a doctor who has decided to save the life of a woman in crisis in labour by using a certain kind of forceps — a rare but standard medical procedure — will, if they are in a Catholic hospital at the time, have to order an ambulance and transport his patient to a public hospital to proceed. This happens. It has always happened — my mother, who was a nurse at Calgary’s Holy Cross Hospital in the 1930s, described just such an incident to me years ago.
This situation raises constitutional problems is the problem. It raises several conflicting ones. We have assured faith communities that, eg, civil-liberties legislation like the marriage legislation will still respect the division of church and state, of public and private or personal, so that no one will be compelled to act against her/his conscience. I believe that it is very important that we continue to defend that basic democratic principle on principle.
At the same time, we give public funds to institutions run by a variety of private organizations, some faith-based (the Salvation Army, eg, whom Bev Oda is talking about funding through SWC, even though it is homophobic), and if anything those partnerships are increasing, although some, as with Catholic institutions, are historic.
And so we end up, especially in small communities like Humboldt, with this sort of quandary, where citizens are supporting a publicly funded institution that does not, however, or cannot, care for all of them as both medicine and the law say they are entitled to be cared for.
My solution? Set up another public facility in Humboldt, perhaps not a full hospital but a clinic that could address those needs that the Catholic hospital cannot. The real problem is that our healthcare system has so little resilience, no redundancy at all (neo-lib politicians like that), so that when conflicts like this arise, the whole thing snaps. And it will remain a conflict — you can’t force Catholic staff to act against conscience, and they will leave if you do.
skdadl | 22-Dec-06 at 6:11 am | Permalink
And a PS to Ashley: I suspect the difference is that vasectomies are performed by the physician in her/his office, so the doctor can proceed without any interference from a faith-based administration.
Tubal ligations, like most other interventions for women, require an operating theatre and a range of professional assistants, and that’s where the physician in a faith-based institution is more likely to lose full decision-making control.
Amanda | 22-Dec-06 at 7:46 am | Permalink
In Estevan, the same thing is true. Here, we cannot have tubals done, but men can have vasectomies done. The reason behind this is that the vasectomies are done right in the doctor’s office, which is outside the actual hospital building.
I am rather shocked that skdadl would defend such behaviour on the part of a Catholic hospital. But then, my son and I nearly died in childbirth because of the Catholic policies. It is TWO HOURS to the nearest non-catholic hospital. I suppose, since you can’t p ut a face to our story, since you don’t know us personally, it is easy to turn a blind eye to this. But rest assured we are human beings and that we strongly oppose the mixing of religious bias and medical science.
By the way, setting up another facility that is equipped to handle full anesthesia, surgical procedures, etc in a town of barely 5000 people is absolutely ludicrous. The facility is there. USE IT! Health care in Sasaktchewan is already dying. Need we help it euthanize itself?
Amanda | 22-Dec-06 at 7:49 am | Permalink
By the way, if you “can’t force Catholic staff to act against their conscience”, then maybe these wonderful people should not have entered the health care profession…. or maybe they should just step outside the room while a life is saved in their absence.
skdadl | 22-Dec-06 at 8:52 am | Permalink
Amanda, I assure you: I am not turning a blind eye. If I didn’t make my outrage at the situation in Humboldt — and now Estevan — clear enough above, I’ll do that now. It is outrageous. You should have had access to any legal medical procedure available anywhere else in Canada — I will stand with any citizen who is claiming that right. And I am personally sorry that you and your son were put in such danger. Besides being wrong, that kind of trauma has deep and long-lasting human effects — I know that, I feel it, I’m with you.
I was simply making the point that there is a better way to solve these conflicts than to defy democratic principle. It is possible to negotiate our way out of these conflicts in a principled way, that does not raise constitutional issues.
Amanda | 22-Dec-06 at 12:11 pm | Permalink
I apologize, skdadl, I must have misinterpreted. Plus, I feel pretty strongly on the issue of Catholic hospitals so that can cloud my judgement ;)
Since tubal ligations are not emergency procedures, since they require advance booking and a good amount of forethought, I actually don’t care so much that Humboldt is refusing to do them. Saskatchewan residents are used to travelling for specialist services, and in this case, booking the surgery in Regina is probably not that big of a deal.
However, it is a slippery slope. If the hospital decides to remove this service on principle, they may next decide to stop using forceps, administering anesthesia during childbirth, or deny C-sections. Since my second son was “from his mother’s womb untimely ripp’t” by Caesarian section, it was done in Regina, not Estevan. Thankfully I knew this in advance and at the first sign of labor pains we jumped in the car and drove to Regina where I tried to deliver naturally but, because of a hereditary condition, was required to have a section after about 30 hours of labor.
In the Catholic hospital in Estevan, I labored for my first son for 67 hours, was denied pain killers (even Tylenol, which my husband snuck in for me), and even though an ultrasound had shown cephalopelvic disproportion, was kept in medicinally induced labor without progress until my sons heart stopped. Only then did they do an emergency C-section, to save MY life. They considered my son lost.
Thankfully he is here today, despite the archaic beliefs that C-sections are invalid births. I warn every woman I see. There is a difference between denying elective, non-life-threatening procedures, and refusing to provide reasonably required care. Hopefully the board at Humboldt hospital understands this.
skdadl | 22-Dec-06 at 12:59 pm | Permalink
Amanda, I am with you, I promise. I’m shattered to read that history, although I know, I know it happens, and I know there are people who are trying even now to impose the cruel regime you faced on every woman in Canada. You want me to fight that any time, I’ll be there.
Actually, I would be surprised if the Humboldt hospital is allowing the use of forceps even now. It’s my understanding that Catholic hospitals have always forbidden a certain kind of forceps, anyway — the kind that save a mother’s life in the worst crises.
That is the situation that anti-abortionists have sensationalized into the category of “partial-birth abortions,” but the truth is that, while they are rare, they have always been done — just not in Catholic hospitals.
However. I still think it is important for us to defend everyone’s freedom of conscience — I will do that too. There is no point in defending only one’s own conscience — the defence only matters if we’re defending the right of people we disagree with to their freedom of thought.
To me, the only way out of this quandary is to ensure that we have generous public resources, with a lot of built-in resilience and redundancy, so that the language of choice really means something, so that workers in the system and patients as well all feel that they have places to go where their views are respected.
If we don’t provide such resources, then we’re always going to have small groups fighting one another, rather than aiming our united protest upwards, at the politicians who keep our public systems so tight and poor that they can’t accommodate differing views.
We should be defending each other, not fighting with each other.
Amanda | 22-Dec-06 at 3:21 pm | Permalink
There has to be some sort of heirarchy of importance though. First article of importance should be assuring that there is a hospital within a community which is prepared, equipped, and staffed to provide every necessary service to the citizens who live there. Once that basic need is met, THEN I invite all Catholics to have a hospital which chooses which services it wants to offer. You can’t have the niceties before you have the essentials.
Whereas it is a wonderful idea to have the politicians fund our system better so that we can have essentials and niceties both, the reality is quite different. Yes, we should unite our voices upwards and try to inspire change, but we also have to be realists in the meantime. The reality is, there is not currently enough money/resources/staff etc to have both a utilitarian and a religious hospital in this community. So, until that changes, the hospital that is in place should be offering ALL services. Basics first, private Catholic hospitals second… right?