Washington touted as safe haven abortion state, but can it take on an influx of patients?
Critics of a recent hospital merger said Friday’s Supreme Court ruling on Roe v. Wade will add to Washington state’s already stressed medical system because of its limited amount of abortion services.
In January 2021, Tacoma-based CHI Franciscan completed its merger with Seattle-based Virginia Mason. The merger, creating Virginia Mason Franciscan Health, meant the secular Virginia Mason had to agree to follow specific directives from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Ethical and Religious Directives.
According to VMFH: “It is the policy of Virginia Mason Franciscan Health that all services rendered in our facilities shall be supportive of life. At no time may direct actions to terminate life be performed or permitted.”
“As part of this coming together and reaching an agreement, Virginia Mason will no longer be providing elective pregnancy terminations,” then-VM CEO Gary Kaplan said in January 2021.
Virginia Mason also ended its participation in the state’s Death with Dignity process.
“Those two now prohibited services were previously very, very few in number, rarely done at Virginia Mason,” Kaplan said at the time.
He added, “If patients choose to access services that we don’t provide, we will help them easily access those services in the community, which has been the case historically and will continue to be the case.”
With a predicted influx of new patients from states with either abortion limits or bans, those referrals could become more challenging.
Leah Rutman, health care and liberty counsel with the ACLU of Washington, told The News Tribune via email that the state was lucky to have the Reproductive Privacy Act, passed in 1991 by voter initiative, which “ensures the right to abortion will continue to exist in Washington state.”
Rutman added, “However, the right to abortion does not ensure access to care. As large health systems have consolidated across our state and restricted abortion care, we have seen reductions in abortion access.”
With the anticipated rising demand for access in the state, she noted the inherent constraints.
“We need to show up and help people across the country who are facing extraordinary barriers to care, but we are hampered in our ability to do that when so many Washington health facilities refuse to provide abortion care,” Rutman said.
In 2021 Gov. Jay Inslee signed the Protecting Pregnancy Act, allowing doctors who practice in Catholic-run hospitals to bypass ethical-religious directives and provide medically necessary abortion when a woman’s life is in danger.
Dr. Sarah Prager, professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Washington Seattle, told Crosscut earlier this month that even with the relatively new state protection for doctors, “abortion care is functionally not available for pretty much any reason at Catholic health care centers currently.”
On Friday, Inslee joined the governors of Oregon and California in declaring the three states as a safe haven for those seeking abortions.
Following the Supreme Court’s decision Friday overturning Roe v. Wade, abortion rights advocates emphasized the coming systemwide stress ahead.
According to Pro Choice Washington, “Nearly 50 percent of hospital beds sit within facilities that restrict access to abortion and other reproductive healthcare – a 26 percent increase over the past 10 years.”
The group noted that since the 1990s, “More than 60 percent of abortion clinics in the Pacific Northwest have closed because of costs and harassment.”
“With nearly 50 percent of hospital beds in Washington under policies that deny access ... under-regulated hospital mergers prevent an unacceptable barrier to care,” Kia Guarino, executive director of Pro Choice Washington, told The News Tribune via email on Friday in response to questions.
After Friday’s ruling, “Washington state has become even more important for abortion access in the U.S.,” she wrote. “We expect upwards of a 400 percent increase in patients seeking care from out of state now that Roe is overturned.”
All of this could add to the patient load at the secular health provider Tacoma-based MultiCare, which is in the process of potentially adding a hospital to its state network.
Yakima Valley Memorial’s board of directors in October 2020 voted to end its affiliation with Virginia Mason ahead of the CHI Franciscan merger. Abortion rights and Death with Dignity advocates applauded the end of the affiliation at the time, as reported by the Yakima Herald Republic.
MultiCare, in a statement issued May 9, said the hospital had signed a letter of intent to explore joining its secular health care network.
Reproductive services weren’t directly addressed in its announcement. Moving forward, MultiCare made clear it wanted to ensure the continuation of care in Yakima.
“I’m hopeful that our two organizations will find ways to work together to ensure that patients and their families in the Yakima Valley have access to a full complement of services close to home for many years to come,” Bill Robertson, CEO of MultiCare, said in the May announcement.
In an internal memo sent to MultiCare employees Friday, Robertson, along with other members of MultiCare leadership team, wrote: “The Supreme Court’s decision does not change MultiCare’s longstanding position: Everyone should have full access to the health care services they need, including reproductive medicine. We believe that the decision to have an abortion — whether that be an in-person surgical procedure or an oral medication prescription — should be one made by the pregnant individual and their provider.”
Joining Robertson in the message was Florence Chang, president, June Altaras, chief quality, safety and nursing officer, and David Carlson, chief physician officer.
The memo added: “This is not a new position for MultiCare, but one that we have been committed to for decades as a community-based, secular, not-for-profit health system.”
It also noted that the health system would be looking into what implications Friday’s ruling had relating to “staff and partner organizations in other states, as well as patients from those states who may seek care in Washington because of this decision.”
Guarino predicted there will be no shortage of patients for providers statewide, with potential “backlogs” awaiting those seeking care.
“We are already seeing an increase in patients from states like Texas and Oklahoma, and this will only grow with today’s ruling,” Guarino said.
This story was originally published June 24, 2022 at 1:47 PM with the headline "Washington touted as safe haven abortion state, but can it take on an influx of patients?."
