’Hospital within a hospital’ solution may ease merger concerns

Catholic hospitals, like most religious healthcare institutions, follow a set of medical ethics based in religion. It's probably unnoticeable for a patient with a broken leg, but for others, the difference is clear. There's a gap between what the Catholic church deems acceptable and what the law allows in reproductive services. That gap includes abortion, stem cell research, vasectomies, treatments for infertility, emergency contraception for rape victims and birth control counseling. It's a gap that many are concerned will be created when University of Louisville Hospital merges with Jewish Hospital and St. Mary's Healthcare and a division of Catholic Health Initiatives. "It's scary just in general not having health insurance, and to think that I would have to rely on a hospital that's under some religious directive, to do that, I'd probably go somewhere else if I could," says Angela Wallace. But U of L says Wallace and others have nothing to worry about. Even though they share faculty, the School of Medicine isn't part of the hospital, and Dean Edward Halperin says everything that's done today will be done after the merger, but not necessarily in the hospital.