UC alters religious hospital policies
University of California Regents, facing criticism for contracts with religious hospitals that refuse to provide abortions, sterilizations or transgender surgery, adopted a new policy Wednesday that retains the contracts but requires the hospitals to let UC physicians perform those procedures when patients can’t be transferred safely to another hospital.
The university is fighting legislation by Sen. Scott Wiener, DSan Francisco, that would require it to end contracts with religious health facilities — like Dignity Health, California’s largest hospital chain — unless the hospitals changed their policies or did not apply them to UC physicians and students working there.
Wednesday’s regents vote moves in that direction, though it does not require termination of any of the contracts the university says it has with 77 hospitals and other health facilities in California. UC officials say the contracts allow its medical staff to provide care for 35,000 patients, many of them lowincome Californians with little access to hospital treatment.
“We should have greater ability to serve more patients, but in a way that is in compliance with the policy we adopt today. We’re against dis
crimination,” said regents Chair John Pérez, author of the resolution the board approved by a 220 vote.
The action allows new contracts only with health care providers that offer their services to all patients, without discrimination, Pérez said. It would not require the hospital’s own staff to perform all medical procedures, but would allow UC personnel at the facilities to do so. And if a patient needed a procedure, such as a hysterectomy or delivery of an ectopic pregnancy, and could not be safely transferred, UC staff would be allowed to perform it at the hospital.
The university would also have to terminate existing contracts with hospitals that do not comply with the policy by the end of 2023, Pérez said.
UC President Michael Drake, who initially proposed lessextensive changes to the current contracts, endorsed Pérez’s amendments. So did Wiener.
“It has the potential to significantly expand access to reproductive and genderaffirming care and to ensure UC physicians can exercise their own professional judgment in providing care,” the senator said in a statement after the vote.
Dignity Health, formerly known as Catholic Healthcare West, owns hospitals that include St. Mary’s Medical Center and St. Francis Memorial Hospital in San Francisco and Sequoia in Redwood City. UC San Francisco, which has contracts with all three hospitals, dropped plans to expand the contract to cover more facilities and medical services in 2019 after protests from UC physicians and hospital staff members.
During public comments that preceded Wednesday’s vote, Dignity’s chief executive officer, Lloyd Dean, said the hospital chain and the university “have been saving lives” with their 20year partnership.
“Dignity Health services everyone, no matter who they are,” including lesbian, gay and transgender patients, Dean told the regents. “We have learned from UC and UC has learned from us.”
But the board also heard from Evan Minton, a transgender man who had been scheduled for a hysterectomy in 2016 at Dignity Health-affiliated Mercy San Juan Medical Center. After learning Minton was transgender, the hospital refused to perform the procedure. State courts ruled that the refusal was illegal health discrimination, and Dignity has appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.
“Being so devastated, I collapsed to the ground,” Minton, 35, told the regents. “Dignity Health is arguing right now in the U.S. Supreme Court that it has the constitutional right to discriminate against me and other transgender people.”
Another speaker, identified only as Hannah, said she was diagnosed with a reproductive disorder four years ago, as a UCLA student, and was taken to a Dignity Healthaffiliated Catholic hospital, which refused to perform surgery.
“I almost died,” she said.