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By Nevyn O'Kane
Women's eNews
Thursday 11 August 2005
Nevyn O'Kane accompanies his wife, a sexual assault counselor, to a Catholic hospital and waits to see if the rape victim will receive emergency contraception.
My wife, Victoria Velinski, is involved with a marvelous rape crisis advocacy group called Rape Victim Advocates. Two weekends a month she is on call for a number of Chicago-area hospitals in case a survivor is admitted after a sexual assault. When she's called, I offer my assistance by giving her a ride and remaining in the waiting room while she helps people get through what is often the worst night of their lives.
Victoria was paged recently to a familiar hospital near Chicago's West Side. After we arrived, she went into triage and I settled into the waiting room to read. Droning in the background was a TV program about lowering blood pressure and a doctor was going over treatments; diet, exercise, stress reduction, etc... I paid little attention until he mentioned the most important method of treatment, "Trust in God."
My head snapped up so fast I nearly sprained my neck. I watched in amazement as anecdotes played on the screen proclaiming how prayer brought the hypertensive back from death's door. While prayer, meditation and pet ownership have all been shown to lower blood pressure, I was amazed that the doctor's primary prescription was prayer. I wondered what my reaction would be if my physician treated me by saying, "Pet your dog and call me in the morning."
I looked to see if anyone was paying attention but was mostly met with uninterested wandering stares; anxious people with little-to-no health insurance waiting for their numbers to be called. That's when my wife came out of the treatment area with a look that would've melted stone.
"We might have to give her a ride," she said.
"Sure, how come?" I asked.
"They're now a Catholic hospital."
Things suddenly became clearer. It seemed that, since we were last there in early 2004, a chain of Catholic hospitals had taken over this previously secular institution. The choice in programming started to make sense but was no less bizarre. As my wife went back to treatment, Pat Robertson welcomed me to The 700 Club, mainstay of Christian evangelistic television.
Changes in Access
A lot happens when a Catholic conglomerate takes over a hospital. Some of the widespread changes center on abortion services and contraception access and education. For example, if abortion was previously performed at the clinic it is no longer offered. Affiliated clinics that perform abortion are usually forced to become independent and if any affiliated clinic offers contraception or contraception education, it may be required to stop or become independent.
But one of the most important changes is that in cases of sexual assault, emergency contraception, known as Plan B, is typically not given by the hospital.
In such a case, a doctor may give a prescription for EC, but the survivor must make the trip to the pharmacy.
The trip to the pharmacy is not only difficult after a traumatic sexual assault, there's also cause to believe that once there, a
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