We won! This time.  

(Original post from 5/15/19 here) Yesterday, we got news that the University of California Board of Regents put aside 3 years of planning and abandoned their proposal for UCSF Medical Center to “expand their relationship” with Catholic-based Dignity Health. If the proposed partnership had passed, the health needs of women, LGBTQ people and the dying would placed in the crosshairs of religious directives from the U.S. Catholic Conference of Bishops. Resistance in the form of protests from UCSF faculty and staffers, a record 147 speakers at the Regent’s board meeting, a lawsuit threat from the ACLU and calls and letters from people like us, convinced the board to stop the process.

Action  –  Call/email Governor Newsom to stop all taxpayer-funded religiously-based discrimination by hospitals. All hospitals. Full stop.

“We’ve heard a growing chorus of concern from multiple stakeholders over the last several weeks particularly in light of the passage of very severe anti-abortion legislation in many states and the stripping down of transgender anti-discrimination protections by the [Trump] administration.”- Vanessa Jacoby, an associate OB-GYN professor at UCSF, regarding the proposed “partnership”.

Minimal script: I’m calling from [zip code] and in light of the recent UCSF/Dignity Health issue, I want to know what Governor Newsom is going to do about Covered CA and other taxpayer-funder support to our 49 Catholic hospitals, one of which is a “sole community provider”. These hospitals systemically discriminate against the legal and common medical needs of women, the poor, minorities and our LGBTQ community.

Continue reading “Wed 5/29: Update on the unsuccessful “side door” incursion of a Catholic hospital into our UC medical system. Thanks to all who called and emailed!” →

Action – Write an email/letter opposing any UC-system university affiliation with any religious, anti-choice, anti-LGBTQ hospital. 

The University of California regents are deciding if they should solve a bed-space issue at UC San Francisco Medical Center, one of the nation’s leading teaching hospitals, by “affiliating” with Dignity Health, a Catholic hospital chain that uses religious directives to openly discriminate against women and LGBTQ patients. If this goes through, it could be the beginning of other UC-Catholic hospital “affiliations,” spreading intolerance into our public hospitals with our own tax dollars as fuel. All the rights and values Californians are rightly proud of mean nothing if, in our most vulnerable moment as a patient, they are not respected.

The regents are meeting May 14-16. Our Governor, Lt. Governor and Assembly Speaker are voting members. This issue is NOT on the agenda but they will be voting on it soon. Call them, and write them an email or letter to tell them that this discussion of whether or not to allow this trojan horse into our health system should be an easy “NO”. Make it as personal as you can.

Minimal script: I’m calling from [zip code] and I want [__] to know that it would be unforgivable to tie UCSF Medical Center or any taxpayer-supported hospital with Dignity Health, or any other system that discriminates and harms women, the poor, minorities and our LGBTQ community.

More script if you want it: If religious hospitals refused to treat non-white people, we would shut them down. Why do we tolerate the verifiable harm these hospitals cause women and LGBTQ people?

Continue reading “Wed 5/15: CA is not immune from forced-birther madness & LGBTQ discrimination. It’s just taking the “side door” into our UC medical campuses. Urgent call/email!” →