Catholic Hospital Offered Bucket, Towels to Woman It Denied an Abortion, California AG Said

[erronis]

https://kffhealthnews.org/news/article/california-attorney-general-lawsuit-emergency-abortion-catholic-hospitals/

When Anna Nusslock showed up at her local hospital 15 weeks pregnant and in severe pain earlier this year, she said, a doctor delivered devastating news: The twins she and her husband had so desperately wanted were not viable. Further, her own health was in danger, and she needed an emergency abortion to prevent hemorrhaging and infection.

Providence St. Joseph Hospital, in the small Northern California coastal city of Eureka, refused to provide the care she required because doctors could detect fetal “heart tones,” Nusslock said at a news conference Monday. California Attorney General Rob Bonta filed a lawsuit against the Catholic hospital detailing Nusslock’s dangerous experience and alleging the hospital violated multiple state laws when it discharged Nusslock — with an offer of a bucket and towels — to go elsewhere for what he described as standard medical care.

Bonta also filed a motion for a preliminary injunction in Humboldt County Superior Court, asking that it require Providence to treat anyone with an emergency medical condition. “The need for immediate relief is about to intensify,” the motion said. That’s because Mad River Community Hospital, where Nusslock ultimately got care 12 miles up the road, is slated to close its birth center this month.

Providence will be the only hospital within about 85 miles to offer labor and delivery, according to a KFF Health News analysis. When care is more than an hour away, academic researchers typically define the area as a hospital desert.

“It begs the question, what happens next time someone in Anna’s situation shows up at Providence? There will be no Mad River for them to go to,” Bonta said at a news conference. “With a dire lack of services, even here in California, and an influx of patients from states with abortion bans, we need hospitals to follow the law.”

[Solly Mack]

1. K&R

[Walleye]

2. God, please help save us from your people

[atreides1]

5. Those aren't God's people

They are loyal to the man made organization, called the Catholic church.

An organization that in my opinion hasn't had any connection to God, since the alliance with Constantine and the Roman Empire!

[Walleye]

7. That is so true, and it looks like nobody can save us from them

[TomSlick]

23. Ever since Constantine adopted the sign of the cross in a moment of military euphoria,

the Church has prospered while Christianity has remained an obscure eastern religion.

(Not an original thought. I read this years ago but cannot now find the source.)

[magicarpet]

3. What,...

... no rusty wire coat hanger or a large fishing hook ? How is she expected to perform her own abortion out in the back parking lot of the hospital ? An industrial wet vac might be helpful too.

Do it yourself abortion.

[erronis]

4. At least a priest should be close by to administer last rites. The most a good Catholic could do.

[dlk]

6. When hospitals deny emergency medical care to women, they should forfeit their taxpayer funding

This barbaric treatment of women is illegal. At the very least, their should be some kind of an enormous financial or licensing penalty.

[twodogsbarking]

8. Save yourself from those who say they will save you. They, well, won't.

[Zilli]

9. Making sure that a pregnant woman in distress is offered towels while they wait her to die?

This hospital is not filled with medical professionals. Medical professionals save lives and always respect the 1st rule.

[DENVERPOPS]

14. The Doctors involved

should have their licenses pulled for violating their code: Do No Harm................

[Tarzanrock]

10. The State of California should cut these hospitals off from ...

... receiving California State Medi-Cal insurance payments and other State insurance payments to these hospitals for their medical services. Take that lucrative source of revenue away from these hospitals and see just how soon they capitulate to providing medical treatment to people who need it. The Catholic Church understands "money" almost as well as it understands theology.

[littlemissmartypants]

13. And thereby cutting access to the already at risk and underserved?

No, thanks. I would not protest however if they were sued by the state's Attorney General.

❤️

[stopdiggin]

15. exactly! did we miss the part where this facility is shortly to become

the ONLY facility providing in patient care within that area? our readership is unfamiliar with the term 'medical desert'?

afraid we need something just a little more tailored (and outcome weighted) than just, "cut off their funding!"

[wolfie001]

11. The 6 scum who sit on the SC

Will not provide ANY relief. We can all be assured of that

[Zilli]

16. The sadistic 6 will make sure

that if a fetus in not viable the woman is in medical crisis she can not be allow the treatment necessary to survive.

[VanceFan]

12. Medical Care

Taking away Medicare payments would only make our situation worse. Medical care in Humboldt County is already hard to find. My wife and I were dropped by another provider when we were forced to go on Medical. Other doctors were telling us no new patients or a waiting list of a year. Providence was the only medical service we could obtain. Organized religion is a curse on humanity.

[Hekate]

22. I agree, mostly. See my post 20 below

[Biglinda 52]

17. You just have to...

keep suing these people- both by the government and the couple. The only thing this country understands in money. It's so sad. It makes me very angry.

[Ping Tung]

18. How very Christian(??) of them.

[Blue for the win]

19. Bye

Shut it down....

[Hekate]

20. People are missing one of the biggest most glaring problems: LACK OF ANY HOSPITAL AT ALL

Turning away emergency patients is evil, all right. The long battle for the civil rights of non-white people included that.

Now it’s just us women of any color. Half the population, anything to do with our lady-parts, and we can be SOL.

However these hospital deserts have been building to an utter crisis for at least 25 years. I can put a date on it because of an intense conversation I had with a cousin in 2002. We seldom get to see each other, as not only were we raised in different places but his adult career has had him working overseas much of the time. Foreign policy he understands — the particulars of American life, not so much.

So, this particular convo had to do with the closure of small secular hospitals in rural parts of the US. You know the reasons: the for-profit model is killing them off.

Enter the venerable Roman Catholic Church. One of its missions throughout its history has been to care for the sick, as Jesus commanded. They’ve done some excellent work in that regard, from lepers to HIV patients. They are known for training doctors and nurses, and for sending them to places where there are none.

There’s just one teensy problem — saving the soul of an unborn baby takes precedence over the life of a full-grown woman who has already presumably had her chances in life.

In the United States of America the split in religion used to be very clear. There were Protestants, the majority of the population from the beginning, and there was everybody else. Catholics grew in number with floods of immigrants from Ireland and Italy. My ancestry is Irish.

Hospitals founded by Protestants (orJews) were both clear on the subject of giving priority to saving a pregnant woman’s life. That really was the majority opinion in the country for much of our history. Abortion might have been an unspeakable no-no, but an actual woman in labor or miscarriage was a patient.

So several things have happened to American hospital care: the for-profit medical system and the rise of the so-called Evangelical movement into political power. The overthrow of Roe meant removing federal protection from hospitals and clinics. The for-profit model means exactly what it says: big city hospitals might be struggling, but rural hospitals are as good as dead.

Roman Catholic hospitals are filling an empty niche, something they feel called to do. That’s always been fine as long as they were one choice among several, and not the only option for hundreds of miles. But American religion coupled with American politics and wedded to capitalism has made sure that niche was wide open — and only one group stepped up.

In other words, we brought this catastrophe on ourselves, and we have to fix it. May our courage not fail.

[jalan48]

21. It's hard to believe any progressive or Democratic woman would stay in the Catholic Church.