yo i am probably going to need a surgery and I noticed I was referred to a religious hospital by default and am not sure what to do about it. I haven't gone there yet. I don't know if I should just ignore that religiousness of it. I was kind of shocked to get a letter in the mail addressed to me with a big ol cross on the envelope.
how do you feel about hospitals (and other health care organizations) that have some tie to religion? I guess a lot of them used to be totally run by churches or whatever but have become somewhat secularized over time. now they get funding from taxes, non profits, insurance companies or whatever.
In my experience it is usually catholic with other christian denominations showing up and many major cities having at least one jewish hospital.
In terms of the anglosphere are there any other religions that have hospitals? I have never heard of a muslim, hindu or buddhist hospital in "the west" though these of course exist elsewhere. do they exist in the US? has anyone ever tried to start one?
In terms of your own (or your family's care)
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do you judge them on their own merits?
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Prefer/boycott them compared to others?
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LGBTQ+++ people: do you trust them?
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women: do you trust them? if you were choosing to carry a pregnancy would you have doubts about going to such a place when the time came?
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religious people: do you trust the ones of other religions? or your own?
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atheists: do you trust them?
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indigenous people: do you trust them?
What kind of hiring practices do these places have? I remember hearing about Salvation Army being anti-queer in hiring. Are they generally allowed to discriminate in accordance of their religious bigotries?
Any other general political ideas too.
Is there any reason these places should be allowed to exist?
Where I live hospitals are publicly owned and not religious coded. There used to be some niche for healthcare associated with religion, I was born in the 1980's at a maternity clinic run by Catholic nuns but I haven't heard of any of these type of places surviving to the present day.
Living in a place with a Lutheran state church, all hospitals has a hospital priest attached. They seem not to be dicks about it and don't accost people who doesn't ask for it. We personally had a very good experience with a hospital priest who helped us through a traumatic event a few years ago. Hospitals are also allowing other faiths to organise religious services and send priests, imams and rabbis to visit patients.