Religious Restrictions:
Hospital Care

Religiously-Sponsored Hospitals

Religiously-sponsored hospitals have long played an important role in the American health care system. Many of these hospitals were founded to serve the medical and spiritual needs of members of a particular faith, including patients and physicians who may have experienced discrimination at other hospitals.

SOURCE: Modern Healthcare's 2010 Hospital System Survey | Bonnie Berkowitz and Mary Kate Cannistra/The Washington Post - Jan. 20, 2011

Since the mid-20th century, however, religiously-sponsored hospitals have served an increasingly diverse population of patients and employ staff who often are not of the same faith as the hospital sponsors. Moreover, religious hospitals (especially Catholic facilities) have consolidated into large regional and national health systems that wield considerable market power and have been acquiring non-religious community hospitals. Four of the 10 largest health systems in the nation are now religiously-sponsored (three Catholic and one Adventist).

Because many religious hospitals continue to restrict the services they provide, based on doctrine, there is a growing conflict between these hospitals and the diverse communities they serve. Patients may have no other convenient choice for hospital care, or may be restricted in where they can seek care because of managed care rules requiring members to use “in-network” hospitals. Frequently patients only learn about restrictive care in a religious hospital once they are in need of such care. (Read about how the majority of Catholics feel about Catholic healthcare here.)

Religious restrictions can interfere with the doctor-patient relationship by effectively “gagging” the physician and preventing him/her from describing treatment options that are not permitted at the hospital. Moreover, physicians may be prohibited from providing disapproved services, even in cases of emergency, such as treatment of ectopic pregnancy or the offering of emergency contraception to rape victims.

Despite these restrictions on patients' access to case and clinicians' ability to provide needed services, religiously-sponsored hospitals continue to receive billions of public dollars each year through Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements and government grants. To learn more, see No Strings Attached: Public Funding of Religiously-Sponsored Hospitals in the United States.

Frances Kissling shares her thoughts on the public health obligations of hospitals that receive public funding.