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Loading ...Gay, HIV groups call for end of Bush health care rules
04.08.2009 6:05pm EDT
(Washington) A coalition of 38 LGBT and HIV advocacy groups is calling for the removal of an eleventh-hour Bush Administration expansion of federal rules prohibiting discrimination against health care workers on the basis of religion.
The groups, which include Lambda Legal and the National Coalition for LGBT Health, call the rules “unnecessary and confusing” and say they endanger public health.The new regulations went into effect on Dec. 19, 2008. At that time, HHS claimed they were needed to protect employees of organizations receiving HHS funds from having to perform procedures they find religiously or morally objectionable.
The 14-page letter submitted Tuesday to HHS says the regulations could give wide latitude to health care workers to discriminate against co-workers or patients who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or living with HIV.
“Federal law already rightly guarantees workers broad protections against religiously motivated discrimination,” said Lambda Legal Senior Counsel Jennifer C. Pizer.
“But everyone would agree that those protections cannot be absolute – they wouldn’t allow a Jehovah’s Witness surgeon to withhold blood transfusions from patients based on the doctor’s religious objection, for example. These regulations – which can be seen as expanding existing protections so health care workers can harass co-workers or choose to treat some patients, but not others – should be rescinded, as the government is now proposing to do,” said Pizer.
Studies show anti-LGBT bias is a persistent problem among health care providers, and religious disapproval of gay people frequently contributes to that. In August 2008, the California Supreme Court ruled that religion cannot be used as a legal excuse for doctors to deny infertility treatment to Oceanside lesbian Lupita Benítez. Her doctors had claimed that California’s constitutional protections of religion allowed them to refuse to inseminate her after 11 months of preparatory medications and surgical treatments, but the high court disagreed unanimously.
“If HHS’s new regulations are allowed to remain in effect, they will have a negative impact on health care for a great many Americans,” said Rebecca Fox, director of the National Coalition for LGBT Health.
“In a country where so many people struggle to access quality health care, HHS created another barrier. These regulations are particularly harmful for LGBT Americans, many of whom already fear being out to their healthcare providers and struggle to find and afford respectful, good quality medical care,” Fox added.
HHS has now proposed rescinding the regulations. If that does not occur, the regulations could cause confusion in everything ranging from who receives care to which organizations can receive federal funding and may result in federally funded programs and health care providers inappropriately refusing to treat LGBT or HIV positive patients in a medically sound, respectful manner, the groups said.
“The Bush Administration put people with HIV at risk with these unnecessary regulations,” said Bebe J. Anderson, director of Lambda Legal’s HIV Project. “Unfortunately, discrimination and ignorance towards people with HIV are still common. The government must not invite or sanction discrimination against people with HIV or LGBT patients.”
Isn’t a medical doctor who doesn’t want to perform certain aspects of his profession because of his religion like ae prostitute in a brothel who refuses to have sex with people because it violates her religion? Why get a job that you can’t perform in?
I wonder what will happen if racist doctors start refusing to treat black people based on religion. Lawsuit? According to this law, they would be protected.
BOTTOM LINE: If your job requires you to serve the general public and doing parts of that job are in conflict with your “ethics” – get another F@CKING JOB!
What if the medical practioner doesn’t like blacks or hispanics because they are of the “religious” belief in white supremacy? What if they are of the religious belief that you shouldn’t take any meds or have blood transfusions etc (those religions exist). Point being, some people are of the opinion that it is “OK” to allow their own personal beliefs to over-ride others personal decisions. We all have personal beliefs that other may not share, but when we go to work, we have to put our personal beliefs aside and do our jobs in accordance with the company the law. It doesn’t matter what our own personal beliefs are they do not trump the rules we all have to follow at work!!!! VERY VERY dangerous to allow “religion” to dictate medical decisions for any reason.
I had a VA primary care provider deny my request for a refill of Vardinafil (Levetra) that another VA DR had proscribed. Her reason for denying my refill, “In all good conscience, I can’t refill it because of who you sleep with.”
I now have to travel 30 miles further to see a different VA clinic to get my perscriptions.
Chelsea – Are you f@cking kidding me? That statemnt is just too damn ignorant to even respond further to.
@ CHELSEA:
Have an emergency plan? What planet are YOU from?? I HAVE an emergency plan: it involves calling 911 and having the expectation that the EMTs will treat me competently, courteously, and expeditiously, EVEN though my same-sex partner is anxiously holding my hand.
The University of California San Diego hospital and the local Roman “Catholic” hospital are within blocks of each other.
I have instructed our neighborhood EMTs and my family NEVER to take me to the Roman “Catholic” hospital UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES.
Despite California law, they do not recognize my marriage and will not allow my husband access to me.
The Roman “Catholic” hospital requires CONSTANT lawsuits to keep them in line.
When my late partner was in there some years ago, they used to refuse to come into his room to deliver his MEALS!
Medical personnel who cannot treat all equally should be FORCED out of the profession!
Speaking as a retired physician…you are so WRONG Chelsea.
All during my career there were many, many doctors, including infectious disease specialists who refused to care for HIV/AIDS patients. They still will not!
Also, many if not most, will not treat patients with sexual identity problems, and they are using rules like these to escape being called for it.
I thought these rules were among the early ones rescinded by the Obama Administration, if not they need to be ASAP!
Religious belief is delusional and cannot be allowed to influence healthworkers, who are supposedely scientists.
If a pharmacy is to find out their pharmacist won’t sell a product, he/she should be fired! If not, why do they even purport to be a pharmacy?
I certainly wouldn’t shop at a pharmacy that hires people who do not sell all of their products…what kind of pharmacy is that? What else are they doing, holding seances to determine who should be treated?
This religion crap is just sick and we have a constitution that is supposed to protect us from delusional beliefs. Obama doesn’t seem to get it, yet, hopefully with the humanists and atheists challenging him he will.
If someone “morally objects” to performing their job duties then they should look for other work. What if this is the only hospital or medical facility for 100 miles? What if you, as the patient, are not presented all of the options available to you and you therefore cannot make an informed judgement for your treatment? What if you were rushed into the ER and without your knowledge you did not receive the full treatment you deserve because of someone’s “moral objections”?
How about in your own place of employment? How would you feel if you always got stuck performing a task because someone else objected to doing it?
I own a cleaning service for professional offices and commercial spaces. All of my employees perform all of the different tasks. If I had an employee who refused to clean toilets, guess what, I would let them go and hire someone else. If they cannot perform their job duties for which they were hired, then I have no further need for them. The same applies for health care workers. They are called “HEALTH CARE” workers and they need to provide ALL types of health care to the patient or find other employment.
There is a huge reason for the separation of church and state. Religious beliefs, which can be total nonsense to other people, have no place in laws that apply to everyone else.
I believe this change of rules is less about AIDS and more about a clever way to force religious hospitals to preform abortions. If this is the case than just as their religion should not be forced on us in law. lack of religion should not be forced on them.
Chelsea,
I can see where you’re coming from but I have to disagree.
While in non-emergency situations it is possible for a person to “shop around” and find the doctor that they are most comfortable with, in emergency situations you don’t always have that luxury. I should know, I speak from experience.I have very severe asthma, which comes in sudden, severe, and unexpected attacks, leading to me being hospitalized many times for it. What if I were on a road trip, or visiting another college, or my car were to break down in another city, and I found myself in the unfortunate circumstance of having an asthma attack in a strange city and have to be rushed to the hospital in an ambulence, a not-so-rare occurence for someone with my health status? Now I could get stuck in the ER department of a hospital where a lot of doctors and nurses working there are religiously against treating LGBT people, (we can’t all live in Massachusettes after all). I would be in the nasty situation of having a very severe asthma attack, and left with basically only two options: Option one is to have no one treat me because once the nurses and doctors see my very supportive and loving domestic partner by my side, supporting me in my very unstable health state, trying to calm me down as my airways close up, they refuse to treat me. My other option is to make my domestic partner wait in the waiting room out of sight and to cross my fingers and hope they can’t tell I’m a lesbian by looking at me. In that case it would have just been my bad luck to get stuck in hospital where these medical practicioners excerise their right to decide who lives and who dies.
Also…on an unrelated point. If I’m a doctor and my religion tells me that “black people are evil because they are the descendants of Cain”, or some other senseless religious reason as to why racism is great, do I have the right to that?
Chelsea, FYI, one fairly common use of this law has been pharmacists refusing to dispense regular contraceptives, morning-after contraceptives, or RU-486. Why? Because their religion values the “sanctity of human life.” Now, Chelsea, sweetheart, you’re saying it’s perfectly fine if a woman with a congenital circulatory disorder is denied a contraceptive prescription by a pharmacist. What if pregnancy could kill her? It’s the pharmacist’s right to deny her access to life-or-death treatment based on marital status? Oh wait–I’m gonna guess you think there are always options. There aren’t. And no church has the right to make that determination in the secular world.
Maybe, Chelsea, you need to read “The Handmaid’s Tale.” Or do you already believe that your uterus is somebody else’s chattel property?
I haven’t even started on stuff like HIV meds, or treatment for STDs, or any of that. There are already those looking for a pharmacists’ opt-out if any stem-cell-based prescriptions come online. This is about science and medicine. Chelsea, might I suggest that if you think religious interference in medicine is such a great idea, you should document your proud experience in that milieu. Just post the URL where we can find you–oh wait, they didn’t have webcams and URLs in the thirteenth century.
I understand your point Chelsea, and who would want a doctor who had a bias against you? But unfortunately people aren’t open about their discrimination.
Patients should be able to take legal action if denied health services unjustly. I want a health care worker to deliver the best care to all patients, regardless of their religious views, for fear of lawsuits.
When you take a job, particularly one funded by the federal government, and portions of the job requirement are incompatible with your chosen religion, you have a simple decision to make: change your religion or find another job. It’s that simple.
This may be an unpopular opinon on this site, but I fail to see the harm in the federal rule prohibiting discrimination of healthcare workers based on religion. While there may be a few dispicable doctors out there who would opt to not treat a GLBT patient, the vast majority have no problems doing so. I say just know your area doctors and have an emergency plan. However I welcome your opinions on the matter.