Patients’ Rights Group Congratulates Sierra Vista Hospital Board for Calling off Carondelet Affiliation
Coalition calls for community input as hospital looks to future
(PRESS RELEASE) Cochise Citizens for Patients’ Rights (CCPR) today congratulated the Board
of Trustees of Sierra Vista Regional Health Center for reaching the correct conclusion
— that an affiliation with Carondelet Health Network is wrong for our hospital
and our community.
Sierra Vista Regional Health Center (SVRHC) was halfway
through a 2-year trial affiliation with the Catholic health system when the
Board announced to the medical staff last night that the affiliation would be
ended. We are relieved to know that our
hospital will once again become a full-service health care facility answerable
to the local community and our trusted physicians, not to out-of-town religious
ethicists. Our greatest regrets are that our community lost some excellent
physicians because of this wrong-headed affiliation and that some of our
neighbors received inexcusable treatment due to the religious restrictions
imposed upon hospital services.
CCPR specifically thanks those brave Sierra Vista physicians who consistently
stood up for the rights of their patients, such as Dr. Bruce Silva. This
morning he told us, “I am so grateful to be able to once again give the quality
care that my patients need.” We also wish to thank the community for their
consistent moral and financial support over the past year as we worked to
educate the public about the impact of this affiliation.
The planned CCPR rally against the affiliation on Saturday
April 9th in Veterans’ Memorial Park will now be a rally in support
of our hospital and a call for a commitment to community input as the hospital
once again considers its options for the future. CCPR hopes that the Board of
SVRHC will now seek constructive input from the community about the future of
the hospital.
A complaint prepared by the National Women’s Law Center
was pending before the state attorney general asking him to investigate the
loss of services at the hospital, and the shift of control of the hospital to
an out-of-state entity. Jill Morrison of NWLC said, “State law requires
the directors of non-profit organizations to carefully consider the impact on
the community before entering into mergers or affiliations. We hope that other
non-sectarian hospital boards will pay careful attention to community impact
before agreeing to affiliate with an entity that limits access to reproductive
health services.”
“Communities all across the nation can now look to Sierra Vista, AZ, for
proof that it does make a difference when people stand up and speak out about
how a hospital merger is harming their health care,” said MergerWatch Director
Lois Uttley. “Cochise Citizens for Patients’ Rights is to be congratulated on
its persistence in calling for an end to this affiliation.” The Sierra Vista affiliation
is the latest of more than 90 religious/secular hospital merger cases in which
MergerWatch has provided assistance to local advocates and physicians in
opposing religiously-based restrictions on access to care.
“This decision is a tremendous victory for women’s rights
in this community and across the country where women are often denied medical
care because of Catholic hospital mergers. When medical facilities refuse a
woman the ability to make decisions about her own health and whether and when
to become a parent, it’s a violation of her basic rights,” said Karen
Leiter, human rights researcher for the Center for Reproductive Rights.
“Thankfully, the local community stood up and demanded that the rights of
women in the community be respected and that their local hospital make the full
range of reproductive health services available.”
