Complaint: Citing Catholic Rules, Doctor Turns Away Bleeding Woman With Dislodged IUD

[Photographer]

Aug 23, 2016, 6:23pm Amy Littlefield

“It felt heartbreaking,” said Melanie Jones. “It felt like they were telling me that I had done something wrong, that I had made a mistake and therefore they were not going to help me; that they stigmatized me, saying that I was doing something wrong, when I’m not doing anything wrong. I’m doing something that’s well within my legal rights.”

Melanie Jones arrived for her doctor’s appointment bleeding and in pain. Jones, 28, who lives in the Chicago area, had slipped in her bathroom, and suspected the fall had dislodged her copper intrauterine device (IUD).

Her doctor confirmed the IUD was dislodged and had to be removed. But the doctor said she would be unable to remove the IUD, citing Catholic restrictions followed by Mercy Hospital and Medical Center and providers within its system.

“I think my first feeling was shock,” Jones told Rewire in an interview. “I thought that eventually they were going to recognize that my health was the top priority.”

The rest at https://rewire.news/article/2016/08/23/complaint-citing-catholic-rules-doctor-turns-away-bleeding-woman-dislodged-iud/

We need to get superstition out of the medical field.

[Act_of_Reparation]

1. If you are not willing to practice medicine.

Maybe you should not be practicing medicine.

[Person 2713]

2. It's the whole hospital system . I have posted here about Chicago catholic hospitals a similar

miscarriage storiyalso not letting you go when terminal (life cult IMO ) and also not enough pain meds but crazy power of prayer . So many people I know are like me because we all know of multiple stories . We tell our loved ones anything happens make sure the responders do not send me to a catholic hospital !!

Edit to add all the stories I am talking about were family and friends
not online or area gossip but this online story in the OP I do not doubt a word

[Calculating]

3. Get religion out of medicine

It really has no place in the practice. If you won't do lifesaving procedures because you have a religious objection, then you have no business being a doctor.

[rug]

4. Something is missing in this blog article.

In a written statement to Rewire, Mercy said, “Generally, our protocol in caring for a woman with a dislodged or troublesome IUD is to offer to remove it.”

Rhodes said Mercy was reviewing its education process on Catholic directives for physicians and residents.

“That act [of removing an IUD] in itself does not violate the directives,” Marty Folan, Mercy’s director of mission integration, told Rewire.

The rules are against inserting an IUD, not removing one.

[sunnystarr]

7. I reread it 3 times

thinking I must have missed something. If they have no problem removing why wasn't it done? Really bad reporting or just using a bad example for an existing problem... which is bad reporting.

[LAGC]

13. What if she doesn't want it removed, just fixed?

What gives these religious authorities the right to decide her healthcare needs for her?

If you're going to be in the business of serving the public, there should be no strings attached.

These Catholic hospitals need to either provide full access healthcare to everyone, without discrimination or refusal to provide certain services, or cede control of those hospitals to secular authorities who can provide the full range of care that people need, if they are unwilling to.

[cannabis_flower]

16. I think

Actually, if it's causing bleeding, it needs to be removed. It might be able to be reinserted later but I'm pretty sure if it's caused an injury, the injury needs to be resolved first. Later she can go somewhere else to have it reinserted.

[rug]

18. That's what I'm thinking.

A lot of things go wrong when any ideology enters health care.

[progressoid]

5. You would think they would be happy to remove that "sinful device"

But maybe the "doctor" was worried the sexy funtime sins would transfer to her if she did this.

[crosinski]

15. it's like they were afraid to touch it!

They needed to take it out, not reinsert it!

Where they afraid there might be a tiny embryo attached?

Idiots.

They should be required to have huge signs in highly visible areas that say they can't give pregnant women the medical treatment they might need to save their lives, not just tell them so.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

23. Even eyeballing the devil's tool is a mortal sin.

15th century morons.

[Person 2713]

6. These are large multiple hospital networks in Chicago,so not so easy to get rid of but I have posted

before on their bizarre practices that can lead to pain infection or worse and also their end of life practices
The reverence of "life" taken to the extreme
I don't think I have enough fingers to count all the catholic hospitals in the metropolis
Mercy is a large hospital on the city lakefront right out side of the downtown area .
You could walk there from the Bears stadium
these hospitals are not an obscurity around here

[awoke_in_2003]

8. "(Wo)Man will never be free

until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest." Diderot

[keithbvadu2]

9. Yet the Catholic Church protected their pederast priests for many decades.

Their idea of right and wrong is very selective.

[matt819]

10. If they do this, they are not doctors (nt)

[neeksgeek]

11. Health is NOT their top priority. That much is clear.

[OldRedneck]

12. But . . . but . . .

Isn't this exactly what Jesus would do???


I hope these assholes skip Purgatory and go straight to Hell. And stay there.

[treestar]

14. What's the problem with removing it?

I thought having it was what went against Catholic dogma.

[smirkymonkey]

17. WTF?

What if her life was in jeopardy? Would they just let her bleed to death? God, I hate these religious mofos!

[CharlotteVale]

19. The Catholic church is dangerous to women's health. Yet it claims to be "pro-life."

[lindysalsagal]

20. This becomes more prevalent as hospitals merge with

Catholic hospitals. 1 in 6 beds are in catholic hospitals right now.

[Humanist_Activist]

21. Stories such as this one will only grow until the government....

Steps in and clamps down on ideologies that interfere with patient care.

[Ilsa]

22. A doctor shouldn't have to question whether a

Treatment as simple as this violates a silly philosophical rule of the employer. The hospital wants to re-educate their staff about their nonsensical rules.