Greetings,

Northeast Health has filed a certificate of need to create the Burdett Care Center. This is one of the early steps on the road to a desired merger with St. Peter’s and Seton Health, creating a single provider hospital system in Rensselaer County that will be bound by the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services (ERDs).

 Upper Hudson Planned Parenthood invites you to :

A Community Forum on the Proposed Rensselaer County Hospital Mergers

Jim Reed, MD, President and Chief Executive Officer of Northeast Health will discuss the merger and will respond to questions from a panel of concerned professionals, followed by questions from the audience. Patricia McGeown, President/CEO of Upper Hudson Planned Parenthood will moderate. We will exdplore a wide variety of concerns including:

-          What are the ERDs and how do they affect health care?

-          What services that are currently offered in Samaritan and Albany Memorial would be banned?

-          Will hospital rooms be required to display Catholic ritual symbols?

-          Will victims of sexual assault be offered Emergency Contraception?

-          Will primary care offices (e.g., Family Medical Group) be required to adhere to the ERDs?

-          Will end of life decisions be honored and respected?

-          Will providers provide full information to lesbian, gay and transgender individuals and families about related health care concerns.

-          Will contraceptives be considered and prescribed for reasons other than birth control?

We invite any and all concerned citizens of Rensselaer County to participate in this community forum.

Pre-registration is requested to allow for adequate seating, refreshments and hand-outs. Go here to register.

More Background: Earlier this year, Northeast Health announced its intention to establish a formal affiliation with St. Peter’s and Seton Health Systems, resulting in one hospital system serving Rensselaer County.  Among many issues raised about this proposed merger is the decision that the resulting entity will be bound by the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services (ERDs). The ERDs are a set of 72 religiously-based rules that Catholic hospitals adhere to in the provision of health care services. These religious doctrines ban the provision of a number of reproductive health services, including abortion, sterilization (tubal ligation and vasectomy) and birth control, as they are considered morally illegitimate. The ERDs also ban health care providers from counseling patients about health care options that are considered morally illegitimate. In other similar mergers across the country, providers have been limited in their ability to counsel or provide full information to patients regarding end of life decisions, health care issues of concern to l/g/b/t populations and even birth control and safer sex.

Northeast Health intends to address some of these concerns through the creation of a facility within a facility; i.e., to create “the Burdett Care Center “  on one floor of Samaritan Hospital.  The Burdett Care Center would be a secular institution, not bound by the ERDs and would provide reproduction-related inpatient and outpatient services, other than abortion, including: maternity, labor, delivery and nursery services; and male or female contraceptive or sterilization services.  While this is a genuine attempt to respond to community need, it leaves many questions of access unanswered.