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| No. 30 | 
Aug 24, 2008, 11:35 AM
 Re: Regulation Proposed to Help Protect Health Care Providers from Discrimination Require recipients of certain HHS funds to certify their compliance with laws protecting provider conscience rights;
Here, the legislation says that in order to receive federal funding, a facility is required to certify that they will not discriminate against providers who refuse to perform or provide abortions or contraception.
Not a big deal for most settings-- on a OB unit in a hospital, you can refuse to provide or participate in abortion, or choose to work in a facility that shares your philosophy, like a Catholic hospital.
The problem here is that publicly-funded birth control clinics and abortion centres would be stripped of their funding if they fire of refuse to hire some one who doesn't do contraception or abortion. So if a nurse who is otherwise most experienced and qualified, but anti-contraception /abortion applies for a job in a birth control clinic, the clinic would be punished if they do not hire that nurse. If a nurse, even if he or she is employed in a setting whose purpose is to provide contraception or abortion refuses to provide these services, the clinic could not let them go.
Forces abortion clinics to hire or retain anti-abortion employees-- and opens the door for anti-abortion/contraception nurses using the legislation to roadblock federally-funded birth control/abortion clinics.
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Aug 24, 2008, 01:20 PM
Re: Regulation Proposed to Help Protect Health Care Providers from Discrimination
I wonder what happens if an unconscious patient arrives in an emergency room bleeding to death, and the only physician on call is a Jehovah's Witness who opposes blood transfusions.
I see where the doc can now legally refuse to transfuse, so shouldn't that be interpretted as "no doctor available" who can save the patient's life? Who's the next in the chain of command who can make decisions? Could a nurse take the reins and order the transfusion? Or does this law allow the doctor to prevent other people who don't share his beliefs from treating "his patient"?
The "what if" questions are endless.
from Wikipedia: Jehovah's Witnesses believe that the Bible prohibits eating blood, and that this includes the storage and transfusion of blood, including in cases of emergency....violation of this doctrine is a serious offense. | | No. 33 |
Aug 24, 2008, 06:28 PM
Re: Regulation Proposed to Help Protect Health Care Providers from Discrimination Originally Posted by hypocaffeinemia  Seventh Day Adventists and Jehova's Witnesses should certainly give a great deal of thought before entering a profession where standards of care go against their religious beliefs. If they elect to enter nursing they should choose a specialty where such conflicts are minimal to non-existent.
I have a friend who is a Jehova's Witness and we have spoken on this matter of conscience several times. She would actually love to be a nurse so that she could become a CRNA, but she has decided to abandon that dream because she knows that in nursing school and in her requisite ICU experience she would be required to assist with blood transfusions and blood products and that is a matter of conscience for her, so she CHOSE not to pursue it.
She likened it to Gambling, her religion doesn't believe in gambling, so she would never take a job as a black-jack dealer in a casino...but if there were no other jobs available, then she might consider a job as a housekeeper or cashier in a casino.
Interestingly enough she also states that a matter of conscience is a purely personal decision (at least for Jehova's witnesses) so while her religion would prohibit HER from personally accepting a blood transfusion, they would not prohibit her from ASSISTING with one as long as her conscience could handle it. I found that very interesting. She told me there are a few nurses in her church who do assist with blood products and the church supports them.
| | No. 35 |
Aug 24, 2008, 07:07 PM
Re: Regulation Proposed to Help Protect Health Care Providers from Discrimination
We work with a wonderful RN who is Jehovahs Witness and does not administer blood.
She is not assigned fresh open heart or acute GI bleed patients.
On the rare occasion her patient needs blood or blood products one of us trades patients or administers the blood.
She helps all of us all the time. WE work together.
I know a pro-life L&D nurse at another hospital. When management decided that C-Sections and abortions would be done in her unit rather than the main OR all the staff worked with their union, management, and nursing staff regarding training and experience.
The schedule now ensures that the nurses who signed a statement would not be assigned to abortions.
One will not assist with tubal ligations either.
| | No. 36 |
Aug 24, 2008, 08:47 PM
Re: Regulation Proposed to Help Protect Health Care Providers from Discrimination
there are two sides to every argument
if a nurse is working in a hospital and is pulled d/t a call in in the abortion clinic if she believed that this is the murder of another human being why would she be required to assist
she did not hire on to this, she works in another part of the hospital
one of the larger hospitals in our area is roman catholic, they will not be a party to abortions, if they are refused government reinbursement there will be many patients who will suffer that are in the hospital for accidents, surgeries, heart/stroke ect that have nothing to due with abortions
a doctor who joins an ob-gyn clinic where some of the other doctors also do abortions should not be required to take on patients who want the abortions..this is a matter of individual rights and the rights of the woman wanting an abortion can not trump the rights of a caregiver who chooses not to assist for what ever the reason
| | No. 37 |
Aug 24, 2008, 08:54 PM
Re: Regulation Proposed to Help Protect Health Care Providers from Discrimination Originally Posted by towntalker there are two sides to every argument
if a nurse is working in a hospital and is pulled d/t a call in in the abortion clinic if she believed that this is the murder of another human being why would she be required to assist
she did not hire on to this, she works in another part of the hospital
one of the larger hospitals in our area is roman catholic, they will not be a party to abortions, if they are refused government reinbursement there will be many patients who will suffer that are in the hospital for accidents, surgeries, heart/stroke ect that have nothing to due with abortions
a doctor who joins an ob-gyn clinic where some of the other doctors also do abortions should not be required to take on patients who want the abortions..this is a matter of individual rights and the rights of the woman wanting an abortion can not trump the rights of a caregiver who chooses not to assist for what ever the reason
While you can make that case for abortion, as it's hardly ever medically necessary, your case fails for oral contraceptives, blood products, or anything else medically in the patient's best interests.
| | No. 38 |
Aug 24, 2008, 11:56 PM
Re: Regulation Proposed to Help Protect Health Care Providers from Discrimination
In my opinion, the provider's conscience should be respected up to the point where it prevents the patient from receiving a needed service. In hospital settings, the ability to find another nurse to provide the service is almost always there and nurses conscientious objections should be respected.
But note that this also applies to contraception. Out here in the west, where distances are large and there are lots of widely scattered small towns, a pharmacist who refused to dispense contraceptives could effectively make contraceptives unavailable to the women in his community, which is not acceptable.
As professionals, our final duty is to the patient and we are not there to judge our patients, but to serve them. If our objections to a given facet of care can be accommodated, they should be - but not at the cost of denying care to the patient.
| | No. 39 |
Aug 25, 2008, 07:54 AM
Re: Regulation Proposed to Help Protect Health Care Providers from Discrimination
The Bush Administration will do anything to advance it's agendas--however perverted, corrupt, irrational, or ill-conceived.
This has been borne out innumerable times in the last 8 years. If you disagree, you've either been living in a cave or in a coma. Hypocaffeinemia is the rational voice in this discussion. His thoughts are not bumper-sticker proclamations, the kind so loved by politicians looking to persuade the gullible and/or uninformed.
Once again, this administration is attempting to silence anything that their ideological base abhors.
To paraphrase Clinton and hypocaff., "It's the patient, stupid," not us. If that, somehow, sounds unbalanced, then you need to re-evaluate your practice.
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