Residents of the Rocky Mountain state voted to approve an assisted-suicide law in the last election but nearly a third of Colorado’s hospitals are taking advantage of an opt-out provision in the law that prevents them from being forced to participate.
Judith Graham,writing for STAT News, is reporting that two of the state’s largest health care systems – both Catholic-run – will not be participating in the new law.
The first system to announce its plans to buck the new law is Centura Health, Colorado’s largest healthcare system which is run by Catholic Health Initiatives and Adventist Health Systems. The system runs 15 hospitals and more than 100 physician practices and clinics.
The state’s second largest Catholic system, SCL Health, which runs seven hospitals and clinics, followed suit by putting out a statement declaring that any patients requesting aid in dying “will be offered an opportunity to transfer to another facility of the patient’s choice.”
This should come as no surprise after the Archdiocese of Denver spent $1.6 million campaigning against the law.
“That effort failed,” Graham reports, “but faith-based health systems are now leading resistance on the ground.”
The resistance seems to be growing as a third large health care system that is not religiously affiliated, HealthONE, also decided that it will not dispense life-terminating medications or allow patients to take them on the premises of its eight hospitals. However, they will not be imposing similar restrictions on their doctors.
“It has a chilling effect,” said Holly Armstrong, a Colorado consultant with Compassion & Choices, a national organization that advocates for end-of-life options about recent developments.
Proponents of the law say the Church may be testing the legal limits of the “conscience” provisions in Colorado’s new law which allow physicians, nurses and pharmacists to “opt out” of participating. Health systems can also bar the practice on their premises.
“But the Colorado law specifically states that health systems can’t prohibit doctors who work for them from discussing end-of-life options with patients or writing prescriptions to be taken off-site,” Graham explains. “This provision was crafted to prevent health systems from erecting barriers to access; only Vermont has a similar rule, but it doesn’t have a heavy concentration of Catholic hospitals.”
“From what we’ve seen, it appears that Centura’s and SCL’s policies go beyond what is allowed under the law,” Kat West, national director of policy and programs for Compassion & Choices, told STAT.
Therefore, a legal challenge is “a distinct possibility,” West said.
But both Centura and SCL sent STAT statements saying they were confident their policies were lawful.
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