{"id":38238,"date":"2022-09-24T11:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-09-24T17:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/mercy-hospital-plans-to-end-female-sterilization-procedure-in-2023\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T02:42:57","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T08:42:57","slug":"mercy-hospital-plans-to-end-female-sterilization-procedure-in-2023","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/mercy-hospital-plans-to-end-female-sterilization-procedure-in-2023\/","title":{"rendered":"Mercy Hospital plans to end female sterilization procedure in 2023"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Dr.
Dr. Krista Ault, general practitioner at La Plata Family Medicine and former director of family medicine at Mercy Hospital, said she isn\u2019t surprised Mercy plans to stop providing tubal ligation, female sterilization, in spring 2023. When Ault was considering a job at Mercy about a decade ago, she was \u201cpleasantly surprised\u201d to learn Mercy provided tubal ligation in the first place, she said. (Brandon Mathis\/Special to the Herald)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Mercy Hospital in Durango, the only hospital with labor and delivery services within 45 miles, plans to stop performing tubal ligation, a female sterilization procedure, in spring next year because the procedure doesn\u2019t align with Catholic values, according to a gynecologist in Durango who says she was briefed on the new policy.<\/p>\n

Brie Todd, gynecologist at Four Corners OB\/GYN, an independent clinic that provides labor and delivery services at Mercy, said the clinic received formal notification on Aug. 15 during a meeting with Patrick Sharp, CEO at Mercy, and the Rev. Augustine Nellary, director of mission integration at Mercy, that the hospital will end female sterilizations on April 15 for nearly everyone.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have previously been able to do a sterilization procedure at the time of a C-section for a woman who is done with child-bearing and had a medical reason not to have additional kids,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Beginning April 15, women will no longer be able to have their tubes tied as a form of birth control, for socioeconomic reasons or for medically life-threatening issues at Mercy, she said. The only exceptions will be for the few people who carry rare ovarian cancer or breast cancer genes, she said.<\/p>\n

Neither Mercy Hospital nor its parent company, Centura Health, responded to requests for comment this week or last week.<\/p>\n

Todd said the doctors of Four Corners OB\/GYN disagree with Mercy\u2019s decision to remove the common form of contraceptive care from its services, because there are valid medical reasons to prevent pregnancy.<\/p>\n

\u201cSay someone has a severe heart disease or a severe kidney disease that would put her life at risk if she was pregnant again. And we would recommend she would not have future children. But that (new policy) would not (allow) us to do that surgery any further,\u201d Todd said.<\/p>\n

Mercy\u2019s change in course would also force people to have two surgeries if they wanted to pursue sterilization after having a cesarean section, Todd said.<\/p>\n

She said a tubal ligation performed at the time of a C-section takes just five minutes. The procedure involves removing a portion of the patient\u2019s fallopian tube and results in permanent sterilization.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat is now being taken away,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Dr. Krista Ault, a general practitioner at La Plata Family Medicine and former director of family medicine at Mercy, said some forms of contraception, such as vasectomies, have been off limits for as long as Centura Health has owned the hospital.<\/p>\n

But during Ault\u2019s tenure at Mercy from 2014 to 2020, practitioners were allowed to prescribe patients other forms of contraception such as IUD\u2019s and birth control medications \u2013 as long as they didn\u2019t outright say it was for birth control.<\/p>\n

\u201cBasically, when you needed to give somebody birth control you could, but it was sort of an unwritten rule that you should probably code it as \u2018painful periods\u2019 or \u2018endometriosis\u2019 or something like that where there was a medical reason besides just needing birth control,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

She added, \u201cThere\u2019s never been a woman who\u2019s never had a painful period.\u201d<\/p>\n

She learned about the underhanded method of providing contraception during her on-boarding process at Mercy, she said.<\/p>\n

Ault described herself as a \u201chuge proponent\u201d of women\u2019s rights and was \u201cpleasantly surprised\u201d when she learned Mercy performed tubal ligation before she started working there. She wanted to be sure she could provide birth control if a patient needed it.<\/p>\n

Impacts of denying tubal ligation at time of C-section<\/div>\n

\"Mercy
Mercy Hospital plans to stop providing tubal ligations, or tying a woman\u2019s tubes to prevent unwanted pregnancies, on April 15, according to the Four Corners OB\/GYN independent clinic that offers labor and delivery services in Mercy\u2019s emergency room. (Brandon Mathis\/Special to the Herald)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

About 50 people underwent a tubal ligation immediately after a C-section in Mercy\u2019s emergency room through Four Corners OB\/GYN in 2021, Todd said.<\/p>\n

If Mercy eliminates female sterilization as doctors with Four Corners OB\/GYN were told it would, a mother seeking to have her tubes tied after a C-section would first need to recover from surgery (typically a six-week process), find an independent facility to handle the tubal ligation procedure, undergo another dose of anesthesia and have another surgery, she said.<\/p>\n

Todd said the process would be laborious for a patient and would especially hurt people of lower socioeconomic status and those with restrictive insurance policies.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe know that the best way to prevent an unintended pregnancy is to provide good contraception. This limits that,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

She added that despite Mercy\u2019s \u201cgreat labor and delivery services,\u201d asking a patient to undergo a second surgery places that woman\u2019s health at unnecessary risk.<\/p>\n

Ault shared similar sentiments.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re taking a young, healthy woman, usually, and making them undergo anesthesia a second time when there is no earthly purpose for that,\u201d she said. \u201cThe costs incurred with that, the medical risk incurred with that. And that\u2019s imposing your religious beliefs on another individual.\u201d<\/p>\n

During the Sept. 10 Pride Festival at Buckley Park, Durango woman Katie Stewart said \u201ceven though we\u2019ve codified abortion rights, people with uteruses still don\u2019t have full access to their reproductive health care.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Durango
Durango woman Katie Stewart, mother of five, said family planning should be left to families, and in particular the one who would be giving birth to a child; she said she doesn\u2019t need religious institutions telling her how to plan her family. (Christian Burney\/Durango Herald)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

The mother of five, including one adoption, said having a tubal ligation saved her life after the birth of her youngest child. Nearly all of Stewart\u2019s four pregnancies have been complicated in one way or another, she said, and she required a C-section each time she gave birth.<\/p>\n

After giving birth for the second time in 2011, one of her doctors encouraged her to get a tubal ligation. At the time, the proposition seemed very \u201cfinal\u201d and she chose not to have the procedure.<\/p>\n

After having one more child, she and her husband decided they were done having kids. But in 2015, Stewart took a pregnancy test that turned up positive.<\/p>\n

That pregnancy wasn\u2019t like most pregnancies, she said. She had hypertension, abnormally high blood pressure, and the pregnancy was taking a toll on her body.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs my pregnancy went on, it got harder and harder for me,\u201d she said. \u201cAround 32 weeks, my body really started to shut down. A typical pregnancy gestation is 40 weeks. I was about eight weeks out from a full-term pregnancy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her fourth child was born prematurely and spent his first week in Mercy\u2019s newborn intensive care unit. Before her fourth and final C-section, Stewart signed off on having her tubes tied. And because Mercy is a Catholic hospital, she needed a priest to sign off on it, she said.<\/p>\n

Stewart said she doesn\u2019t think she would have been able to travel to another hospital for a C-section at the time of her fourth and final pregnancy. She was seeing her doctor weekly for her deteriorating health condition, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cHaving to travel 60 miles to get obstetric care is just mind-boggling,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

It also would have been difficult to bear another surgery after recovering from the most grueling pregnancy she\u2019d experienced.<\/p>\n

\u201cReflecting on my recovery period, it was my fourth C-section, and I was in a great deal of pain for months,\u201d she said. \u201cI had a really hard time recovering. I was dealing with postpartum depression because I was dealing with how hard the pregnancy was. And my son was in the NICU. That\u2019s a hard road to travel, regardless.\u201d<\/p>\n

She added: \u201cEverybody should have access to life-saving health care.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mercy\u2019s reported decision comes at a time when reproductive liberties face scrutiny at the federal level and in states across the country. Coloradans might feel comforted by codified rights to contraception and abortion under state law, but governments aren\u2019t the only institutions that can grant or prevent access to sometimes life-saving procedures.<\/p>\n

Colorado\u2019s Reproductive Health Equity Act signed into law on April 4 protects the rights to contraception and abortion<\/a> from interference by public entities, ignited by the U.S. Supreme Court\u2019s June ruling to overturn federal protections provided by the Roe v. Wade ruling of 1973. But the new state law doesn\u2019t affect the private and nonprofit sectors.<\/p>\n

Todd, who was one of Stewart\u2019s doctors during some of her pregnancies, said in an email to The Durango Herald<\/em>, \u201cOverall, the doctors at Four Corners OB\/GYN have a good working relationship with Mercy Regional Medical Center. I feel we provide excellent care to our mothers and babies.\u201d<\/p>\n

Doctors and religious doctrine<\/div>\n

\"Mercy
Mercy Hospital plans to stop providing tubal ligations, or tying a woman\u2019s tubes to prevent unwanted pregnancies, on April 15, according to the Four Corners OB\/GYN independent clinic that offers labor and delivery services in Mercy\u2019s emergency room. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald file)<\/span>du1-i-syn<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Mercy is owned by Centura Health, a Catholic nonprofit in turn owned by CommonSpirit Health, one of the largest Catholic health systems in the United States.<\/p>\n

Todd said Mercy\u2019s \u201ccourse correction\u201d in policy stems from the \u201cEthical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services,\u201d the sixth edition of which was developed by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in 2018.<\/p>\n

Specifically: \u201cDirect sterilization of either men or women, whether permanent or temporary, is not permitted in a Catholic health care institution. Procedures that induce sterility are permitted when their direct effect is the cure or alleviation of a present and serious pathology and a simpler treatment is not available.\u201d<\/p>\n

Todd said, \u201cI read that and I\u2019m a little confused, because there\u2019s that specific part of \u2018a simpler treatment is not available.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

To perform the sterilization procedure at the time of a C-section is the simpler treatment \u2013 not to have two surgeries, she said.<\/p>\n

Todd said a woman\u2019s reproductive choices should be her\u2019s alone, and that someone else\u2019s religious beliefs shouldn\u2019t have any bearing on those choices.<\/p>\n

cburney@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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