Colorado Catholic Hospital Facing Protest Over Abortionist

[_Abyssinia]

A Catholic hospital in Colorado will face protests next Thursday by pro-life advocates who are upset that it has in its employment an abortion practitioner who works at Planned Parenthood.

Members of the local pro-life group Lifeguard will be joined by Lila Rose, the national pro-life advocate who has exposed abuses at Planned Parenthood such as covering up cases of sexual abuse of minors and aiding sex traffickers in getting abortions for the girls on which they prey. They will be protesting at Catholic hospital Mercy Regional Medical Center, which currently employs abortion practitioner Richard Grossman.

The protest will take place next Thursday, along with a press conference announcing more about the background of the relationship between Grossman and Mercy. The event will take place at 1010 Three Springs Blvd. in Durango, Colorado, outside of the entrance to Mercy Regional Medical Center at 1:30 p.m. local time.

“The fact that Mercy Hospital allows Dr. Grossman, the local Planned Parenthood abortionist, to maintain his private practice on hospital grounds is a scandal and an outrage,” Rose said in a statement to LifeNews today.

She added, “No hospital should promote so-called doctors who make their living off of killing defenseless pre-born children, and a Catholic hospital should know better. Mercy Hospital should immediately sever all ties with Dr. Grossman and evict him from their premises, and if not, the Archdiocese of Denver must intervene to end Mercy Hospital’s cooperation with the abortion industry.”

lifenews.com/2011/07/29/colorado-catholic-hospital-facing-protest-over-abortionist/

 

[Allegra]

I’m surprised this requires a protest. You would think as soon as the information was brought forward, they would have dismissed him. I guess perhaps they need some time to prove the allegations are true, but this seems insane!

 

[Corki]

I’m surprised this requires a protest. You would think as soon as the information was brought forward, they would have dismissed him. I guess perhaps they need some time to prove the allegations are true, but this seems insane!

That’s my thinking too. There could also be contractual and/or HR issues to be worked through before they could dismiss him. One would hope that his privaleges would be suspened in the meantime, however.

 

[Rence]

I don’t know how things are done all over the country, but what I came to know when I have worked in hospitals is this: the hospitals rented space to physicians, and these physicians may or may not have had privelidges to practice in that hospital. What I mean by “priviledges”, I don’t mean, “gee, it’s a priviledge to be here”. What I mean is simply that the physcian in question has the right to practice medicine in affiliation with the hospital. That means that they are ‘on staff’ at that hospital. So someone with ‘privileges’ can admit someone to the hospital, give orders for tests and/or procedures, etc. But that doesn’t mean they are employees. They are not employees. The only physican “employed” by the hospitals were hospitalists.

A doctor can have “privelidges” at one or more hospitals. So, a physician may have privelidges at a Catholic hospital, but might also have privelidges in one or more other hospitals or clinics, including secular ones. The range of services available ranged depending on where the physician admitted his/her patients, or where he/she arranged to have procedures and/or testing done. This is a fact of life and an old one.

So…in all the hospitals I have worked in, the hospitals rented out office space to doctors. That didn’t usually affect what the doctor did outside the hospital itself, even if the office space rented was on hospital property. For example, one of the doctors on staff was a urologist. He used to perform sterilizations in a neighboring secular hospital. But he did not perform such procedures in the Catholic hospital.

There are many doctors who are affiliated with Catholic and secular institutions at the same time. They will send their patients to the Catholic hospital when appropriate, and they will send their patients that require non-Catholic services (such as the sterilizations) to the secular hospitals. This is not new and this is not unique. I have no idea why this one protest is taking place, or why these people have targeted this particular hospital or doctor…but this is common and old news…

It will be interesting to see how this situation in Colorado turns out. But if they start with this one doctor, there will be a trickle effect to other doctors as well. And this will limit the availability of services and physicians to this Catholic hospital and the patients in the area. Instead of having ten doctors for a particular specialty, they may end up with one or two. While the secular hospital will continue to have more services and physicians available…

 

[Wendy1989]

I looked up the Mercy Regional Medical Center and it’s parent affiliation. Mercy’s parent is Centura Health. This is a health system established in 1996 between Catholic Health Initiatives and Adventist Health. I’ve attached the link to their Mission & Values page. You can also view the other facilities within the organization.

centura.org/body.cfm?id=307

There may be a contractual issue. Generally, on the Mission & Values page of all Catholic Hospitals / Health Systems, there is a statement concerning conception to natural death and the dignity of life that Catholics hold. This is not found directly stated in Centura’s mission / values statement.

 

[TheRealJuliane]

I almost panicked when I read this - I used to work for Mercy Medical Center, and I knew a Dr. Grossman. But then I read this is in Durango, and the hospital I worked in was in Denver, and this is not the same doctor I knew.

I don’t even think the hospital I worked in exists any more. I am sorry that Catholic hospitals are losing their way.