Trouble in Paradise
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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Lurker Contribution- 3rd tri dramaz
http://community.thebump.com/cs/ks/forums/1/61928466/ShowThread.aspx
"How about, go find your whore uterus a new hospital? The good christians don't want their hands covered in your sins."
Re: Lurker Contribution- 3rd tri dramaz
Absolutely. She is a known shyt-stirrer. Makes for good entertainment though.
Well that was entertaining. Aruiz really ran with it on that thread. I have to give her
for her trolling there.
There's something about a person complaining about the lack of birth-control services at a Catholic hospital that makes you wonder what hole they just crawled out of.
http://pandce.proboards.com/index.cgi#general
Right? Because everyone has unlimited access to a ton of non-catholic hospitals/non-catholic insurance coverage!
Maybe this is a difference in regions. I'm in the you can choose who provides your healthcare camp but that might be a matter of limited perspective. I live in a relatively rural area (40 minutes from a small city) and I had a choice of four hospitals owned by 3 different companies to pick from when I chose where to deliver. I couldn't imagine anywhere outside of some Alaskan village where there's no choice in hospitals.
Is it different in different areas of the country?
I'm not going to get into who's right or wrong on this subject. But, Nearly everyone on the planet knows that Catholics don't believe in most forms of BC. If you knew you were going to want a BC procedure done, I think she should have looked into the issue earlier.
Granted, I have extremely limited experience dealing with health insurance companies, but I would think that if they had the choice of paying for the birth and then paying for the TL, separately,they might instead, try to work with her if she were to attempt to find a nearby hospital that will do both procedures, at once.
It sounded like she was planning a C-section anyway. So I would think that if she has to travel an extra hour or so, to a non-Catholic Hospital, that it wouldn't be as big of a deal.
I'm with you Sailor. It's a Catholic hospital. It is not a life-saving procedure.
I deliver at a Catholic hospital. I would not expect them to come in with a handful of birth control pills.
It absolutely varies by region. For example, I know of several small towns in rural Oregon where the only hospital for a couple hundred miles is a Catholic hospital. Insurance coverage is an issue here, too. If your only "in-plan" hospital is the Catholic one, your (affordable) options are limited again.
Also, we're not talking about a nose job, for crying out loud. It might be "elective" in the sense that it's not necessarily life-saving, but family planning and decisions about whether or not you want to end the possibility of becoming pregnant--ever--is hardly on par with deciding to have liposuction.
I'd be interested to know how many of the so-called pro-lifers who primly sneer at women that if they don't want to have children, they shouldn't get pregnant are the same people who are supportive of catholic hospitals being able to deny comprehensive reproductive care to women.
I agree with you that it stinks that The Catholic Hospital won't give her the tubal. However, it is against their core beliefs, and they are not required to do it. There is also been some debate that they won't provide emergency abortions even if the mother's life is at risk. I disagree with the Catholic Hospital's approach to women's health on both of these issues.
We can disagree with their policies all we want but that doesn't change the fact that they won't do it. Its against their values. I have no idea why the values of the hospital at large somehow trump the woman coming to them for service, but apparently they do. I disagree with that too. What if the person admitted to the ER or whatnot is not a Catholic (and as you say)... they have no choice? I think that is really cruddy.
I think that a family's reproductive choices are a private matter, so I won't comment on whether or not I think someone should be getting pregnant at any point in their life. Its not my business, and I don't think its the government's business either. We never know the whole story of someone's reproductive journey or issues.
I believe in choice. Choice to have an abortion, tubal, you name it. I hate the term pro-life because I am also pro-life. I think life is awesome and babies are awesome. Its not like the pro-choicers are pro-death or something which is what the term always sounds like to me (pro-life).
I really can't understand how someone couldn't have realized this might be a problem at a Catholic hospital.
We live in an area where we really have one hospital that is likely the most logical choice for delivering but if you needed other options, they are about an hour away. MIL swears that our hospital declined OB treatment for SIL because she was an unwed teen mom. That was in 2000.
BFP #4 It's a BOY!
CP: July 2011
BFP #3: 11/3/2011 M/C 12/12/11
We miss you and love you always, little firecrackers!
Sorry for the lack of quoting but it's a PITA on my phone.
I might feel differently if this lady did not have access to family planning services but it sounds very much from her post like she just chose the wrong hospital. Yeah, it sucks for her but she's the one who walked into a Chinese buffet and was mad that she couldn't order a happy meal.
She said that she would have to have the c-section and then the other procedure elsewhere, meaning that the other procedure is available and affordable to her.
So yes, if it was a matter of the Catholic hospita vor bust I would feel her pain, but that's not how it sounds at all. That said, she was jumped a little hard. We all make mistakes and sometimes don't do our homework and it doesn't usually come back and bite us that badly.
No, she said that 1) she didn't know before she was told by her OB that the TL was a no-go that it was a Catholic hospital and 2) it's the only hospital her OB delivers at. So yes, she could deliver at another hospital, but not with the OB she loves and has trusted for several years (she said the OB was also her GYN before she was pregnant). I don't know that she's even looked into whether or not her insurance would cover other OBs she might like at other hospitals she might like, because it would be a huge PITA. She also likes some aspects of the hospital, but is venting because not getting a TL is a huge PITA.
In addition, yes, legally, currently a Catholic hospital can deny certain services, such as ART, abortion, end-of-life directives they don't agree with, or any type of contraception. Rather than saying, "Gee, that sucks" can we not say that it is abhorent and appalling that this is allowed to happen in the US? When South Dakota banned abortion was the response, "Well, that really sucks for them. I disagree, but what are you going to do?" Thankfully, many people didn't take that attitude and fought against it. Yes, at one point, Catholic and other religious hospitals provided the best and most comprehensive care. Before other entities got their shiit together. I wouldn't say that Catholic hospitals are better than privately owned hospitals or VA hospitals, now. And they use taxpayer money at about the same rate! But they're allowed to discriminate based on the type of care they feel like providing.
I feel the same way about this as I feel about pharmacists who refuse to distribute the morning after pill - if part of your job conflicts with your religious beliefs, perhaps you need to find a new job. If Catholic hospitals cannot provide legal, routine proceedures to those who want them and qualify for them, perhaps they shouldn't be in the business of providing obstetric services.
40/112
I just reread the original post and I take back the bit about feeling bad for her. And she's in Florida, not some remote wasteland.
fuckingnest.
gah!
*
dup
I'm fuzzy on why so many are getting hung up on this one particular individual--as though she were the issue. She's not. The issue is that for a not-insignificant number of people, the only option, or affordable option, for healthcare is with hospitals that decide what care they will and will not provide based on their "moral code" or some such bullshit.
goddamnnest!
RE: this particular case
Because her problems were not created by a lack of options and she seems to not just be demanding what she should have but demanding that people who believe it is a sin help her in obtaining it. It'd be like throwing a fit because the pastor won't drive me to the abortion clinic when there's a bus stop by the front door.
I don't think that's fair to her. She didn't know the hospital was Catholic, and even if she did, not all Catholic hospitals prohibit TL. Honestly, I used to be Catholic and went to Catholic schools for many years, and I would have still blithely assumed I could get a medical procedure done at a Catholic hospital. And there are 15,000 to research in pregnancy! If you don't know Catholic hospitals don't perform TL, and didn't even know your hospital was Catholic in the first place, how are you supposed to research that?
We converge when you bring up taxpayer money but this isn't about who should be eligible to receive government funds. If it was, then we wouldn't have much to disagree on.
If we were talking about some small town where the Catholic hospital was the only hospital, I'd say that there needs to another option - but there already are other options here.
Where we disagree is if this is about how it should be or how it is. I believe marijuana should be legal. Completely decriminalized. (I can say that because I don't smoke it). That's how I think that it should be. But I'm not about to have sympathy for someone who gets arrested for smoking it. Because that how it actually is.
I just found the name of the Catholic healthcare network in her area, randomly picked from the list of hospitals on their website, Googled it and found complaint that they don't offer birth control services.If she researched enough to find out whether or not it was a good hospital, she would've known the situation.
Okay, and the fact that she's referring to religion doctrine as "opinions" kind of erks me, which is saying a lot because I'm not Catholic, but may be why I may be seeing her through slightly tinted lenses.
So, too bad so sad for me since I didn't do prescient research? It doesn't happen often, but I'm with mery.
I think being stuck in a situation like that isn't optimal; but I also agree with a private institution's right to follow the mandates of their chosen religion. You can't force a private, religious healthcare institution to provide abortions and contraception any more than you can force Catholics to stop practicing medicine.
Updated September 2012.
I give Sailorette a big
on everything here.
I was merely saying that it's odd to me that she would expect a Catholic institution to dole out contraception. I think Catholics being anti-BC is one of the most well known religious beliefs out there.
There is a Catholic hospital in my area. I've used their ER for minor ailments and I've used their blood lab, but I don't subscribe to their beliefs so really, I wouldn't go there for anything outside of the ER or blood lab.
IMO, it's an odd hospital. There are nuns everywhere, every hour they say prayers over entire hospital's PA system, there are nuns to say grace with you in the cafeteria, they say grace over the PA when the patient meals are being delivered, the lord's prayer in the evening before the nuns leave for the evening, there are crucifixes and holy water stations throughout... it's really just too much for my liking. My grandfather was in that hospital quite a few times when I was a kid and teenager and my dad was just in there a couple years ago and it was all still the same. Nuns kept coming in their rooms to pray for them... same stuff over the PA, same presence.
But really, it's their hospital. They can do whatever they want. I don't like it, so I don't go there.
Same with the teaching hospital 30 minutes away. I don't necessarily want to be a guinea pig for 2nd year med students and I certainly didn't want my birth to be a spectator sport, so I didn't use that hospital. I went to the "normal" (not teaching, non religious) hospital.
http://pandce.proboards.com/index.cgi#general
"Rather than saying, "Gee, that sucks" can we not say that it is abhorent and appalling that this is allowed to happen in the US? ...I feel the same way about this as I feel about pharmacists who refuse to distribute the morning after pill - if part of your job conflicts with your religious beliefs, perhaps you need to find a new job. If Catholic hospitals cannot provide legal, routine proceedures to those who want them and qualify for them, perhaps they shouldn't be in the business of providing obstetric services. "
My phone is making it hard to quote-- so I had to do it the old-fashioned way.
I agree with all you've said here Mery. My question is this: If we disagree adamantly about the procedures, what do we do to change it? I'm not being snarky. I am genuinely curious because I feel powerless in situations like this against big hospitals (and to some extent I feel like I'm getting ready to duke it out with The Catholic Church at large with topics like this) and their services.
Can the average person do something about this? Maybe stop frequenting the hospitals and maybe they'll do something? Write our Congress people? (though I feel that might be pissing in the wind, but I'd do it) I just want to know what I can do.
I mean, I will gladly say that I strongly disagree with the hospital being in the OBGYN business if they don't provide ALL the services associated (abortions, birth control, you name it). I will say the same thing about Pharmacists as you.
To echo Sailorette a bit: The original poster in the thread was caught unawares, and didn't do her research. I'm not saying that it doesn't suck big donkey balls, but she is a big girl and as such is responsible to know what the hospital she chooses provides. If it was her ONLY option I would be more inclined to feel more sympathy for her. However, she has other options. She just doesn't like having to switch. Well, I can understand why that would be frustrating, but ultimately she is SOL. Is it right? No. Do I agree? Absolutely not, but those are the breaks...