CHICAGO (CNS) – A declining number of vowed religious in the hallways or fewer crucifixes on the walls do not make Catholic hospitals any less Catholic, as long as they continue their mission to serve the least among us, according to panelists at a conference in Chicago.
Three leaders in Catholic health care and ethics discussed "Catholic Health Care as Mission" Feb. 28 to open a three-day conference on "Catholic Health Care Ethics: The Tradition and Contemporary Culture" at Loyola University Chicago in suburban Maywood.
With health care "a multibillion-dollar business," some might wonder "if we look a whole lot different than for-profit hospitals," said Brian Yanofchick, senior vice president for mission services at the Catholic Health Association.
"But we still offer a lot of services that others don't want to touch these days" because they are not profitable, he added.
"Caring for the poor is an integral part of what we do, but it creates a lot of struggles," said Patricia Cassidy, senior vice president for system development and strategy at Loyola University Health System. "The burden is on us to make sure we give people an opportunity to understand what we are about."
Mark G. Kuczewski, director of the Neiswanger Institute for Bioethics and Health Policy at Loyola's Stritch School of Medicine, said Catholic health care has "a long history of many challenges and we've gotten through them, so we should approach (new challenges) with a certain attitude of confidence."
Yanofchick recalled the roots of Catholic health care in the Catholic nuns who traveled into the wilds of early America to care for those without access to medical treatment.
"It's really true in some ways that Catholic hospitals are not in the context in which they were formed," he said. But although there is "no call today for sisters on horseback," he added, others are continuing their work of "going where no one else would go."
Listing the "unmet needs for us today in Catholic health care," Yanofchick called for greater efforts to achieve "trusting relationships" with patients, employees and other health providers in the community.
"Every horror story about how someone was not taken care of was an issue of trust," he said.
The CHA official also urged Catholic health providers to work for greater influence at the national level on issues such as the uninsured and ethics, while also working with others in the local community to provide better care for the poor.
On ethical issues, Cassidy worried that "technology is zooming ahead of ethical conversations."
"We are not ready to deal with that issue," she said, adding that everyone in Catholic health care needs to know how to respond when a specific procedure is not available to a patient because of ethical concerns and the patient says, "I can go across the street and get that done."
She also urged a greater advocacy role for Catholic health care at the national and regional level and said everyone in the workforce must be given "an opportunity to absorb our mission and to feel it and to live it."
"We are people of such privilege; it's a God-given gift to be in Catholic health care," Cassidy said. "We have to put that face on, and not (look like) the wolf is at the door."
Kuczewski said the spiritual legacy of the Catholic Church should be shared with all in Catholic health care, noting that he had gotten great benefit from experiencing a yearlong retreat based on the "Spiritual Exercises" of St. Ignatius Loyola while remaining in the work world.
The retreat was "a tremendous resource as you start to face the struggle," he said. "We do a disservice (to employees) if we don't make those spiritual resources available."
About 150 people participated in the conference, which was sponsored by CHA and the Neiswanger institute, in conjunction with the Chicago Medical Society.
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