Catholic Hospitals: Food and Water Must be Given to Patients in Vegetative State even if Their Advance Directive Says No

But their policies affect all of us because they are buying up hospitals at an unprecedented rate. Some areas patients have no choice except to use a Catholic hospital. Why should their beliefs override those of the patients and the patients agreewment with their doctors?

If it was the other way around, if they said, "No food or water to anyone in a vegetative state, even if their advance directive said they wanted it," would you defend them still?

What about when the insurance runs out? Do they have the right to force the patient or family to continue paying forever when there is no hope of recovery? Why should a patient have to pay for medical services they specifically wrote they did not want?

Should the family be able to sue to force the bishops to pay for it? I wonder what they would decide if they were forced to pay all the costs. The RCC is already facing bankruptcy. Would they still be so adament if they had to pay all the costs?

What if a judge sided with the patient or family and told them to stop? Should they keep on doing whatever they pleased at that point? Should they still be able to bill the patient or family at that point?

There is a difference in ambulances. A private ambulance will take you wherever you want to go, including to another state. But government emergency ambulances are required to take you to the closest available hospital.

If a person is in a life-threatening emergency, they will not be thinking about which hospital they need if they fall into a vegetative state and the EMTS are going to be focusing on getting them to a trauma unit ASAP. Doesn't matter which state you are in. If they were to take the long route, they risk losing their patient or making their patient's risk worse. That opens them up to lawsuits and/or firing.

The other reason for this rule is to ensure that this ambulance is freed up ASAP in case there is another citizen who needs help. Allowing one person to tie up an ambulance for hours while they seek non-Catholic hospitals is not a good use of an emergency ambulance. Others could die while they are being transported. If that is what the patient wants, the EMTS will usually stay with them until a private ambulance arrives.

Some towns only have one ambulance. All towns and cities have minimal emergency ambulances in relation to population because they are expensive to maintain.They aren't going to let one be tied up for hours and risk the welfare of other citizens.

On top of that, the cost to the taxpayer (and/or patient) would be horrendous. Cities charge for the service (at least they do here). You don't have to pay up front, but you do have to pay, either through insurance or your own pocket. Makes more sense to pay for a private ambulance on an non-emergency basis because it would be cheaper.

Far too many (and apparently the bishops who think this is a good policy) think that life only consists of body functions. As long as any of them exist, then life exists despite the fact that all ability to experience life has fled.

It is cruelty to force someone to continue living in pain or in a bed with no sensibility of being in this world. It is arrogance to think you have the right to do so even when they have chosen otherwise. The one thing it isn't is godly or divine.

I see. So pain makes the difference. When I broke my ankle, I was in pain. Should I have had different medical treatment because I was in pain vs I didn't feel any pain (other than a painkiller)?

You didn't answer: who should pay? Should the insurance company have to pay if the patient doesn't want it? Should the patient have to pay? The patient's family? The bishops?

Those medical services aren't cheap. They bankrupt the patient's estate and their families. So this is a valid concern.

I'm willing to bet the bishops don't want to pay for the cost on behalf of every patient who doesn't want it.

And yes, they are being arrogant if they believe they have the right to impose this on people who've made a valid decision otherwise.

I would not force my horse, dog or cat to "live" just to satisfy my views. I don't want to be forced to "live" because someone else believes different than me.

Exactly.

In addition, the RCC is increasingly taking over HMOs that are mandated by certain governmental health insurance programs like Medicare and Medicaid.

This is what the article says:

Officials are weighing how to interpret the guideline in various circumstances.

What happens, for example, if a patient's advance directive, which expresses that individual's end-of-life wishes, conflicts with a Catholic medical center's religious obligations?

So no, it isn't clear they would honor my wishes or anyone elses. Many of their hospitals already ignore the law when a rape victim is seen because they refuse not only to offer her the morning after pill but even to mention she has the right to get one. That too isn't their choice.

It doesn't matter to me what their leaders think. They are not me nor are they my doctor. They are not trained at all in the medical field. They have no right to make any medical decision on my behalf.

You said earlier that no one has to go to a Catholic hospital, but that isn't true. If a person needs the paramedics in my area, the paramedics choose what hospital they take you to, usually the closest one. If you need a trauma center, then they take you to the closest trauma center. That means if I'm in a car accident with head injuries, they could take me to Holy Cross or St. Josephs (depending on where the accident occurred), both fine trauma centers -- but not because I chose to go there.

Since a trauma center is what I would most likely need if I suddenly was in a vegetative state, that means I'd be in a Catholic Hospital because they own the hospitals that have the trauma centers.

Should our paramedics be required to take people to a trauma center further away to get people to a neutral hospital? If the doctor who sees me believes I should not receive food and water as per my advance directive, why should the bishops get to override her or him?

I'm still noting that you aren't answering my questions on who should pay. Why not? If the bishops are going to order this, then they should pay for it, shouldn't they?

Some states have laws on the books that mandate hospitals either providing a prescription or referring to a doctor that does. They don't do either. Their licenses need to be revoked.

With the Catholics buying up more and more hospitals, this is going to be an increasing problem. I've seen several people right here at NV complain that they can't get surgical sterilization where they live -- something else that Catholic hospitals won't allow. They also refuse to allow birth control to be presribed or administered.

This is just another way to force others to live according to their beliefs. Their beliefs have nothing to do with medicine and should not be interfereing with either patient or doctor rights.

Not all doctors that practice in these hospitals agree with them, but if there is no other hosptial in the area, then they have to use Catholic Hospitals. How else are they going to be able to help their patients?

These hospitals should not be considered private enterprises. They should be considered public services with the public's rights trumping their own narrow beliefs.

'Catholic turn for 2 Colorado hospitals' by Jennifer Brown - The ...

Aug 20, 2009 ... All the hospitals in my area are owned by CatholicHealthcare West, very scary.
Catholic ownership of healthcare does have its' implications. Our local hospital refuses, for purely religious reasons, to allow its' facilities to be used for vasectomy operations, which have to be performed at the surgeon's own premises at extra cost. Who does this benefit?

If they want to run their hospitals under their belief standards, then they should only be allowed to run hospitals that provide no health care under state of the art medical practices. They should be limited to medical practices that are as medieval as their beliefs. You can't have it both ways. Either you believe in modern medicine or you don't.

The difference would be that their decisions would not be based on religious beliefs but on scientific fact -- and they would not be denying me my legal rights because of their religious beliefs that I do not share.

While some organizations might try to use the finanicial benefit of the hospital as an excuse to deny care, they would not use it to force care onto me when I do not want it. You keep arguing that they would obey the patient's advanced directive and the law, but they've already proven that is not so.

The revised Directive fails to respect settled law that empowers patients with the right to refuse or direct the withdrawal of life prolonging care, including artificial nutrition and hydration. The Supreme Court in the case of Nancy Cruzan recognized that such a choice is a fundamental liberty guaranteed by the US Constitution. State courts have reached the same conclusion based on State constitutional law and common law. But the Bishops have demonstrated no interest in patient choices that conflict with their Directives.

In the summer of 2000, Archbishop Justin Rigali of St. Louis forced Steven G. Becker to leave a Catholic hospital in St. Louis and go home to die. Rigali overruled a decision to remove a feeding tube that had been approved by a court decision, advised by the hospital’s ethics committee and requested by Becker’s wife Christie, in keeping with her husband’s wishes. Rigali is now chairman of the Bishops’ Committee on Pro-life Activities and participated in crafting the newly adopted language in Directive 58.

The court specifically ruled (more than once) that patients have the right to refuse care if they choose. That is case law, so how can they be protected from it? In the case I cited, they were not protected. The court sided with the patient.

In retaliation, the RCC kicked the man out and sent him home to die. That's pretty cold. Where's the compassion and the supposed respect for advance directives?

I agree that we need to stop this at the legislative and government administrative level. They should not be able to refuse legitimate medical services or force medical services on people based on their faith. If they do, they should lose their hospital license. To make matters worse, they are actively trying to force other hospitals to let them buy them out and make them part of the Catholic chain. That's pretty aggressive, wouldn't you say?

otherspoon: Colorado Hospital Merger Will Expand USCCB Patient ...

From Law Week Colorado, a report on the continuing struggle in Denver to prevent the Roman Catholic Church from overtaking two existing non-profit hospitals ...

I sincerely doubt that people would support the Jehovah's Witnesses buying up all the hospitals in an area and then refusing to provide blood transfusions based on their faith. There is no reason to support the RCC for doing the same.

I think that paragraph refers to their objections to birth control, sterlizations, the morning after pill and abortions. This directive is too new to have obtained the necessary exemptions -- and it never should. Case law should trump both their beliefs and whoever is handing out these exemptions.

In the Colorado cases, that is why the hospitals are refusing to sell to them. That would leave Colorado with no place for people to go who want these services. At the same time they are trying to take these hospitals by force, they are fighting against a new PP clinic that would provide these services. So this seems to be a planned strategy to impose their will on our citizens even though we have the legal right to these services.

Not according to the courts. Per the courts, the patient has the right to refuse treatment, including food and water. Nothing trumps the law of our land.

Would you say that so casually if it was the Jehovah's Witnesses refusing to allow blood transfusions? That is part of their beliefs, but I doubt you would argue they have the right to keep all patients in their hospitals (if they owned any) from receiving blood.

Or what about if the Christan Scientists bought all the hospitals in an area and shut them down except for the use of prayer because that is what they believe?

When a religious body has control of all or most of the hospitals in an area and restricts what their doctors can do, then it adversely affects all the people in that area. It should not be allowed.

I've asked this a couple of times and you never answered, but what if it was the law of the land-as in a state legislated the same thing the RCC has?

Laws are part of the democratic process. When one is proposed, then it is debated and then voted upon. It can also be repealed. If someone proposed such a law, you can bet the AMA and other medical organizations would have their say before it went to a vote. They would have a hand in crafting it and influence those who voted upon it.

After it is enacted, if it violates a patient's rights, it will be struck down by the courts. There are many safeguards to represent the rights of the public.

That is far different than a few men sitting in their cloistered hallways and taking a vote that impacts millions. They should not have that power, especially since they have no medical training. It isn't ideological purity that is driving the RCC. If it was, they would not have done the things they've done in the past.

Did you know the RCC has invested in companies that make money off from birth control and weapons of war?

Or that while they were trying to prevent the abortion of an eleven year old rape victim who was pregnant with twins and would die, they were also forcing abortions on nunsin Africa who had been raped by RCC priests?

To add insult to injury, the Cardinal involved openly valued the life of the fetus over the life of the little girl. The RCC excommunicated the doctors and others who helped save her life -- but did nothing whatsoever to the man who'd been raping her for years.

Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, head of the Roman Catholic Church's Congregation for Bishops: "It is a sad case but the real problem is that the twins conceived were two innocent persons, who had the right to live and could not be eliminated,"

At the time they were trying to stop birth control and abortion services for women in Kosovo who were being systematically raped by the Serbian army, they were also providing birth control for their nuns who might have to serve in an area where the rapes were occurring.

Of course, that doesn't even begin to address the sexual predator priest network that they've maintained around the world.

The RCC is not a bastion of morality. It is a corrupt institution with a lot of power. It is also a sovereign nation, which means that another nation is trying to subvert our laws that concern the health and rights of our citizens.

That's a good point to. I would imagine they are adversely affected. The goal of their profession is to help people regain health. When they know it can never happen, it has to weigh them down.

The family is also advserely impacted emotionally. They've lost a loved one but cannot move on with their lives because the shell of the body is still "alive." Not in any meaningful way though. There is a whole range of emotions died up in grief that cannot be resolved and wanting to resolve them -- which is normal -- produces intense guilt and a whole new set of emotions.

As a society, we need to learn to let go. Nature never intended to have us linger for years via the use of tubes. That's as unnatural as it gets. Seems to me that the bishops don't have the faith in God that they profess, or they wouldn't think keeping a person trapped inside a useless body has merit.