As Saskatchewan moves towards a single regional health authority, there is now a question about whether or not that should also mean Saskatchewan’s hospitals should abandon the religious component of health care and switch to a completely public system.
This isn’t a big deal for the Sunrise Health Region, as a mere two of the facilities in the Health Region have religious management, St. Anthony’s Hospital in Esterhazy and St. Peter’s Hospital in Melville.
Those two facilities could also be used as a reason why religion and health need to be pushed apart. They are both the only hospitals in their towns. While a hospital like St. Paul’s in Saskatoon can easily argue they can refuse things like medically assisted dying or abortion because it’s against their beliefs and another hospital is available for patients, in a small town your hospital is your hospital, if you can’t get a service there you’re going to have to prepare yourself for a trip to another community. If you’re a patient in palliative care who would consider medically assisted dying, for example, that trip is going to be nearly impossible.
The debate about whether or not a service can be offered in a religious facility has resulted in facilities losing their religious association in the province before. Humboldt, for example, did not incorporate religion into its new facility after a controversy around tubal ligation services in their old hospital. Cases like that illustrate that faith-run hospitals live in a minefield, as they’re in constant danger of hitting that one service that turns a community against them.
But it does connect to a much bigger issue, how do you connect religion to health care? For many patients, religion does have a place in their care, and their faith aids in the healing process – even if it’s just helping with the stress of a major procedure or a difficult diagnosis, religion can be a definite comfort for believers. But that needs to be at the patient’s discretion, and a Hindu woman is not going to find very much comfort in a Catholic priest.
There needs to be a way to welcome religion in for the patients who need it, but it might be the case where the only good way to do that is to have religion and hospital management separate, because Saskatchewan is becoming a province with a greater range of religions, including those with no religion at all. Religious care needs to be available, but it needs to be at the discretion of the patient whether they want it or what kind they would choose.
