ARTICLES

Church/State Partners

Catholics Signing up for Government Care

By Camille Gigglio

According to a report published online by the Catholic Health Association of the United States, three quarters of association member systems and one-half of Catholic Health member hospitals have collaborated in some way with an organizational partner. The report also admits that while many of the partners are also Catholic in nature and principles, many are "collaboration[s] between Catholic and other-than-Catholic organizations." The phrase 'other-than-Catholic' is a discreet way of saying that Catholic hospitals have formed partnerships with secular and governmental agencies that might draw sharp criticisms from traditional entities within the Church.

Bay Area Catholic hospitals and churches have been forming partnerships with community agencies, especially in the area of delivery of health care services. This started in the early 1990s through grants from private foundations or endowments. It has expanded rapidly following the 1998 passage of the federal Welfare Reform Act known as Temporary Assistance to the Needy. Contained in that Act was an amendment by Sen. John Ashcroft, (R-Missouri), which authorized churches to receive community targeted funds. But it is becoming clear to what extent this partnership turns parishioners into potential clients for taxpayer-funded agencies that do not respect human life.

Churches participate in a couple of ways. One is to form a partnership with community interfaith organizing groups. This group then acts as the spokesman on issues of public policy, appearing before governmental committees, requesting solutions to community or neighborhood concerns. According to the Reverend Alan Jones, pastor of the San Francisco United Methodist Mission and California director for the Interfaith Alliance: "The various [community organizing] groups in the Bay Area are doing some excellent work in community organizing ... they have historically worked through churches as the primary access to neighborhoods at a grass roots level." Another is through a parish nurse program. The person designated as a parish nurse within a given church may be a registered nurse, but need not be especially if the church has also formed a partnership with a hospital. The most important qualification is the ability to appear to be a warm, compassionate listener. According to a definition provided by St. Francis Hospital of Santa Barbara, a parish nurse is a health educator teaching "individual self-care, targeting all age groups, and may include such subjects as stress, grief, weight management, family relationships, adolescence, aging, cancer, diabetes, cardiac disease, and family planning."

In the Oakland Diocese, St. Rose Hospital of Hayward has been working toward establishing a parish nurse program based on the Christian Nursing Association model. In the meantime, for the last three years the hospital has been operating a mobile medical van staffed and funded through the hospital. It services low-income people in the south Hayward area. It is called Care-A-Van. It parks at public schools offering physical exams, immunizations, treatment for minor illnesses and injuries, and provides information and referral services for family planning. They accept MediCal patients and provide application assistance for the Healthy Families state health insurance covering those who have too much income for MediCal. The hospital receives a $50 payment from the state in return for each successfully completed application. The hospital also operates the Silva Pediatric and Dental clinic in a partnership with the local Rotary club. This clinic serves the Harder-Tennyson area of Hayward. It, too, accepts MediCal and will assist residents in applying for state funded health care coverage.

With regard to MediCal covered patients, a St. Rose hospital spokeswoman stated that the hospital is not required to provide services, such as family planning and abortion, which are opposed to their Catholic principles, but they are required to refer patients to agencies that will provide those services. There seems to be some confusion on this standard. Last year's legislation by Assemblymember Sheila Kuehl (D-Santa Monica), which would have required that all hospitals receiving public funds make referrals for comprehensive reproductive services failed passage in the assembly and never became law. The legislation was bitterly fought by the Catholic Conference and other pro-family groups. Catholic Healthcare West has not responded to inquiries whether they have adopted Kuehl's standard anyway.

St. Mary's hospital in San Francisco has taken a different funding route to provide taxpayer-based clinic services to the uninsured. St. Mary's ended their mobile clinic services, which served Catholic schools due to limited funding and increased expenses of operating a clinic. The hospital now holds clinic hours in the schools themselves. Their school-care program is now funded through a grant from the California Endowment. A major partner in the California Endowment is Molly Coye, former Governor Wilson appointee to Health and Human Services. Coye, considered to be an expert on China's health care programs, was instrumental in expanding health care partnerships, including family planning, during her term.

The parish nurse program was conceived by a Lutheran minister, Granger Westberg, following a tour of China. He found that in China, the major portion of health care dollars was spent on preventive medicine rather than curative medicine. He believed the opposite was taking place in America and he determined to change that. Westberg opened his first parish nurse program in Chicago with funding from the Kellogg Foundation. The Presbyterian and Church of Christ Ministries picked up his ideas in other parts of the U.S. Westberg also believed that a person's physical well being was tied to his or her emotional and spiritual health. "The key to preventive medicine lay in picking up people's early cries for help. People will talk with nurses. Nurses, rather than social workers, command respect." A common theme in parish nurse material is the idea that physical well-being is synonymous with spiritual health or a positive relationship with God. This equation lends itself to the government agenda of lowering health care costs while at the same time creating a greater pool of government clients.

TOP