Posted on 10/04/2019 12:42:19 PM PDT by Morgana
FULL TITLE: Catholic Hospital Faces Lawsuit After Firing Employee Who Planned to Kill Patient in Assisted Suicide
A Catholic hospital in Colorado is facing a legal challenge after firing an employee who planned to kill a patient by assisted suicide.
Centura Health, a Catholic healthcare network based in Colorado has been challenged by court action after dismissing employee, Doctor Barbara Morris, who wanted to prescribe lethal drugs to a 64-year old patient, Neil Mahoney, in order to end his life.
Morris was fired on the 26th of August 2019, after she asked a state court to declare that Centura Health’s faith-based policy was in violation of the Colorado state law which allows doctors to prescribe lethal drugs to patients in order to end their life.
Centura Health follows the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services (ERDCHCS) for their guidelines.
The principles state: “Euthanasia is an action or omission that of itself or by intention causes death in order to alleviate suffering. Catholic health care institutions may never condone or participate in euthanasia or assisted suicide in any way. Dying patients who request euthanasia should receive loving care, psychological and spiritual support, and appropriate remedies for pain and other symptoms so that they can live with dignity until the time of natural death.”
A legal challenge against Centura Health is now being relocated to the state court, with the issue of religious freedom expected to be addressed. Centura Health’s position is the state cannot prevent religious organisations from disciplining employees who disagree with their belief systems.
The Archdiocese of Denver spokesman, Mark Haas said: “Asking a Christian hospital to play any role in violating the dignity of human life is asking the Christian hospital to compromise its values and core mission. This is not the hospital forcing its beliefs upon others, but rather having outside views forced upon it.” Freedom of conscience and religious freedom in healthcare
The moves against Centura Health have arrived only months after the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) finalised new rules which restored freedom of conscience and religious freedom in the healthcare setting. The new rule ensures that healthcare entities and professionals cannot be bullied out of the healthcare field for refusing to participate in actions that violate their conscience, including the taking of human life.
SPUC Scotland Director of Communications and Campaigns, Michael Robinson, described the action being taken against the Colorado hospital as “deeply troubling” and said the situation illustrates “the great confusion around values in medicine and the role of conscience.”
Mr Robinson said: “The situation at Centura Health is alarming. Healthcare facilities which uphold the dignity of every human life have a right to exist, and to ensure their staff do not undermine the values of the institution. There is evidence of a creeping culture of death which is infecting many medical professions. Centura upholds values that all medics should applaud and that the pro-life community must continue to promote vigorously.”
Hope the hospital wins!
Hope the hospital wins!
I’m gonna sue you for posting twice lol
Answer is simple....my Christian hospital, my rules.
Think it’s about time we go to....loser pays all court costs and attorney fees.
A hospital fires a doctor who wants to kill a patient. This is a problem?
“Religion is beginning to exert its moral role in society.”
But in this case, the moral role here is not about the doctor. It’s about the law. So firing the doctor is illegal as she was staying within the law.
If the hospital wants to make a statement, make it with the state and not with its employees. They cannot sidestep the law because it doesn’t match with their religious beliefs. The first amendment doesn’t work that way. The only thing on earth you have a right to do is live then die. Everything else is a privilege. Change the privilege, don’t ignore it.
rwood
You don’t know what you’re talking about. You’re making it up.
When someone tells me I’m wrong because you don’t like what I said, then do some research and prove me wrong. But the point is, if a doctor mistreats a patient because they were ordered to, then it is the fault of the doctor and not the people who told he/she to do it. That’s called malpractice and can lead to million dollar suits.
I’ll say it again, the problem the hospital has is with the law and not the doctor. They can ask a doctor to mistreat a patient, but they can’t make he/she do it. The doctors are bound by their Hippocratic oath:
I swear to fulfill, to the best of my ability and judgment, this covenant:
I will respect the hard-won scientific gains of those physicians in whose steps I walk, and gladly share such knowledge as is mine with those who are to follow.
I will apply, for the benefit of the sick, all measures which are required, avoiding those twin traps of over treatment and therapeutic nihilism.
I will remember that there is art to medicine as well as science, and that warmth, sympathy, and understanding may outweigh the surgeon’s knife or the chemist’s drug.
I will not be ashamed to say “I know not,” nor will I fail to call in my colleagues when the skills of another are needed for a patient’s recovery.
I will respect the privacy of my patients, for their problems are not disclosed to me that the world may know. Most especially must I tread with care in matters of life and death. If it is given me to save a life, all thanks. But it may also be within my power to take a life; this awesome responsibility must be faced with great humbleness and awareness of my own frailty. Above all, I must not play at God.
I will remember that I do not treat a fever chart, a cancerous growth, but a sick human being, whose illness may affect the person’s family and economic stability. My responsibility includes these related problems, if I am to care adequately for the sick.
I will prevent disease whenever I can, for prevention is preferable to cure.
I will remember that I remain a member of society, with special obligations to all my fellow human beings, those sound of mind and body as well as the infirm.
If I do not violate this oath, may I enjoy life and art, respected while I live and remembered with affection thereafter. May I always act so as to preserve the finest traditions of my calling and may I long experience the joy of healing those who seek my help.
So the doctor is bound by this even before he/she is a doctor. He treats the patient as it is. And doesn’t allow an organization like a hospital to deny proper treatment for any reason. And forcing a physician to change prescribing is what happened in this case.
Sorry for telling you the truth. Look it up and you may get a better understanding of the law.
rwood
Medical malpractice is governed by a concept called "standard of care". Care to cite ANY US court decisions that establish a standard of care requiring doctors to assist their patients to kill themselves? You can't, because there are no such decisions, at least not yet.
“Medical malpractice is governed by a concept called “standard of care”. Care to cite ANY US court decisions that establish a standard of care requiring doctors to assist their patients to kill themselves? You can’t, because there are no such decisions, at least not yet.”
The Hippocratic oath has changed over the years.
American Medical Association Code of Ethics (post- 1980)
Preamble: The medical profession has long subscribed to a body of ethical statements developed primarily for the benefit of the patient. As a member of this profession, a physician must recognize responsibility not only to patients, but also to society, to other health professionals, and to self.
The following Principles adopted by the [AMA] are not laws, but standards of conduct which define the essentials of honorable behavior for the physician.
A physician shall deal honestly with patients and colleagues, and strive to expose those physicians deficient in character or competence, or who engage in fraud or deception.
A physician shall respect the law and also recognize a responsibility to seek changes in those requirements which are contrary to the best interests of the patient.
A physician shall respect the rights of patients, of colleagues, and of other health professionals, and shall safeguard patient confidences within the constraints of the law.
A physician shall continue to study, apply and advance scientific knowledge, make relevant information available to patients, colleagues, and the public, obtain consultation, and use the talents of other health professionals when indicated.
A physician shall, in the provision of appropriate patient care, except in emergencies, be free to choose whom to serve, with whom to associate, and the environment in which to provide medical services.
A physician shall recognize a responsibility to participate in activities contributing to an improved community.
Dr. Christine Thang, a 2015 graduate of the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, said the oath is a reminder that a physician’s job is to “treat not just the diseases we encounter but to think of each individual patient as a whole person.”
The Colorado Physician-Assisted Death Initiative, also known as Proposition 106, was on the November 8, 2016, ballot in Colorado as an initiated state statute. It was approved. So physician assisted death is a state law. And therefore the hospital’s problem with the use of the act is not legally within their determination. So they cannot terminate a physician who acted within the law.
Morals have nothing to do with it. It’s legalities. And agreeing or disagreeing with a law is a privilege, it is not a right. And you either follow it or you are called to pay a punishment for not doing so. They punished the doctor for their dislike of the law. That is indisputable.
I never said I agreed or disagreed with the law, just that it was being followed by the doctor and not by the hospital and the hospital was wrong for firing the doctor. You may not like the doctor’s or the hospital’s theories on the use of the law, but that doesn’t make any difference for the actions they both took. The doctor was inside the law and the hospital was not.
rwood
So law trumps the entities social and philosophical policies?
The law says I can smoke marijuana in certain states.
The policies of various entities say that I cannot smoke marijuana in their facilities.
The law says I can drink alcohol. The policies of certain entities say I cannot drink alcohol in their facilities.
“So law trumps the entities social and philosophical policies?”
Our social policies are reinforced by laws and our only way of getting them in the way we want is by hiring (voting in) the candidates that believe as we do and will do it for us. And so many have different ideas as to what that is. Each state is it’s own little world as long as it doesn’t go astray of the federal laws. They can add to it, but they can’t directly conflict it. That can start civil wars like when California was talking about succeeding from the union a few years ago. They can’t by law. And our Constitution has it’s own system of law and people hired to determine it, SCOTUS.
Philosophy is defined as the study of the theoretical basis of a particular branch of knowledge or experience. It is only a thought, not a practice as you’re back to the only practice being the law it pertains to. That is the only reality our society is represented by, right or wrong.
Look at capital punishment. You may not agree with euthanizing a criminal because of the thing or things he/she did. But the law exists. And in many states now it has been repealed. But it still exists in twenty-nine states. And for those that approve of it, it only exists in twenty-nine. If a person feels strongly enough about it, then they can live in the states that approve the way they want or campaign to get it changed.
This incident is a carbon copy of the ones concerning a religious based business not wanting to violate their beliefs by, one instance, not making a cake for a homosexual wedding. They didn’t win that argument. None of the arguments that compromised the law have been won. Our sales, our places of worship, and about any act we do in the world is governed by someone and something. The way to fix it is not to punish, but to get it changed to what the people want...by law. And voting in the right people does that. Ignoring or violating the law, doesn’t get it changed. And depending on the severity of the violation, can only create trouble not assistance. And firing a doctor for considering a legal act, that would have to be approved by the patient, is not the way to get it done. It conflicts the law and the doctor’s privileges in his practice. The only rights are those that God gives. Everything else is a privilege determined by law.
Sorry for the length. A lot is in this topic.
rwood
Centura is not a catholic hospital. It is a system of both catholic and adventist hospitals.
wrong. The state law has a clause in it for religious exemption. That is what is being tested here
Doctors haven’t taken the hippocratic oath in years. My class in 1986 did not.
“Catholic Hospital Faces Lawsuit After Firing Employee Who Planned to Kill Patient in Assisted...”
“Centura Health, a Catholic healthcare network based in Colorado…..”
Catholic Health Initiatives (CHI) is a national nonprofit health system with headquarters in Englewood, Colorado. CHI is a nonprofit, faith-based health system formed in 1996 through the consolidation of three Catholic health systems. It is one of the nation’s largest healthcare systems.
I can only use what I have. If you have further information concerning the institution, then it isn’t in their web sites.
rwood
they are a joint venture between CHI and adventist hospitals
In 1996, Adventist Health System (AHS) and Catholic Health Initiatives (CHI) hospitals in Colorado formed Centura Health, a faith-based, nonprofit health care network designed to manage and strengthen their hospitals and services.
Thank you.
According to the Denver Post, CHI was formed in 1996 through the consolidation of four Catholic health systems. That same year, CHI teamed with Adventist Health System to jointly operate Centura Health, which has 17 hospitals in Colorado and is based in Centennial. But that was never in question.
The problem is that the law, developed by Colorado, in 2016, states that Proposition 106 permits terminally ill patients with under six months to live, as determined by two physicians, to self-administer aid-in-dying drugs to voluntarily die. To be eligible, the patient must be at least 18 years old, determined mentally capable by two physicians, and able to communicate an informed decision. Receiving aid-in-dying drugs requires one written request, witnessed by at least two other persons, and two oral requests. The measure also allowed a physician to prescribe the lethal drug to a terminally ill patient under certain conditions. Health providers and facilities are not required to prescribe or dispense aid-in-dying medication. In addition, Proposition 106 criminalized coercing a patient with a terminal illness to request the drug.
Doctor Barbara Morris, who wanted to prescribe lethal drugs to a 64-year old patient, Neil Mahoney, in order to end his life, was terminated after she asked a state court to declare that Centura Health’s faith-based policy was in violation of the Colorado state law. She was not fired for the act of doing it or even prescribing the drugs. She was fired because she wanted to challenge the Hospital, in court, for a legal clarification of the law.
And you, as a physician, I’m sure can totally understand that when the institution can prescribe medication or procedure, they have overstepped their bounds. And only a legal definition by a court can answer the questions involved. And when she tried to get them, she was fired for her efforts toward the legal use of the law. The hospital over stepped their capacities by terminating her.
rwood
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