IRELAND
Newstalk
One of Ireland’s largest hospitals does not provide women with the contraceptive pill – based on its operational ethos as a Catholic institution.
In-patients at the Mater Misericordiae University Hospital in Dublin are not provided with access to the pill, regardless of whether they need it due to illness or are suffering without it.
While doctors are free to prescribe the medication, the hospital does not stock the pill at its on-site pharmacy and expects women to source their own from outside. …
The Department of Health has refused to comment on the revelations – insisting that the Mater is a private institution free to operate under its own ethos and guidelines.
Dr Murphy said that while the hospital is a private institution, it is funded by the government. …
The situation will do little to calm fears however, that the planned delivery of sole ownership of the new National Maternity Hospital to another religious order, the Sisters of Charity, will compromise its clinical and operational independence.
A department spokesman said the new facility will be operating “very much under a different situation” with a “triple-lock” system in place to guarantee its autonomy and clinical independence.
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