Mayo opens a “special procedures” clinic in Onalaska, Franciscan Skemp "to retain its Catholic identity"

Franciscan Skemp
Last spring Mayo in Rochester, MN decided to ... well, continue performing abortions and Bishop Quinn declaring Mayo Clinic's Saint Mary's Hospital no longer designated "Catholic health care institution." 

Side note: Did I ever mention I used to work at Mayo Clinic in Rochester?  Years ago, doing IT.

And for those of you following along at home Mayo Health Systems kind of sort of owns La Crosse's Franciscan Healthcare, originally founded by the FSPA.

A really well written article by the La Crosse Trib:
Mayo Clinic Health System will reopen an Onalaska clinic on Friday as a “special procedures” facility to offer sterilizations.

The vasectomies for men and Essure contraceptive implants for women “will be under the umbrella of the Mayo Clinic Health System rather than Franciscan Healthcare,” said Rick Thiesse, spokesman for La Crosse-based Mayo Clinic Health System-Franciscan Healthcare.

The arrangement is intended to allow Mayo-Franciscan, which Mayo and Franciscan Healthcare co-sponsor, to retain its Catholic identity, Thiesse said.

He noted the “sensitive matter of these special outpatient-based sterilization procedures.”

Catholic hospitals are required to follow the U.S. bishops’ Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Healthcare Services, a 43-page document that sets care guidelines but bans abortion and sterilization.
continue at LAXTrib 

It should be noted that Mayo-Franciscan does prescribe oral contraception, and yes, sometimes pushing it immediately after childbirth, but clearly a sign of some life here in La Crosse healthcare.  

The Diocese of La Crosse issued a statement in conjunction:


MAYO CLINIC HEALTH SYSTEM ANNOUNCES WELL STREET CLINIC

Mayo Clinic Health System announced the opening of a special procedure clinic in Onalaska. This announcement is the result of several years of proactive collaborative work between the last three bishops of the Diocese of La Crosse, the Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration in La Crosse, and the administration, staff, many doctors, and the Mayo Clinic Health System.

One of the primary objectives in this collaborative work is to maintain the integrity of the Catholic hospital and its deep Franciscan tradition. Life is sacred and a gift from God. All medical procedures performed within a Catholic hospital must be in harmony with Catholic teaching.

This separate clinic available to the people of the La Crosse area, as such, will emphasize the distinction between the hospital’s procedures and protocols described in the Ethical and Religious Directives (ERDs) set forth by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, and procedures found incongruous with Catholic teaching.
Well I think it's a win for Franciscan Healthcare.  Mayo instead of coercing Franciscan Skemp to perform "special procedures" will just open a clinic and do it themselves.  Now with that said, clearly they have the groundwork set to do abortions in Onalaska (Gunderson Lutheran right now is the only abortion provider in the area).  Since Mayo doesn't really have a principled ethical guideline on what procedures are acceptable, it's hard to say for what else this clinic will be used.  The facility is only a few blocks from the only Catholic church in Onalaska. 

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

This is the biggest bunch of horsecrap. But will the Bishop down there step in and lower the boom?

--William

Cassandra said...

Well I think it's a win for Franciscan Healthcare.

Franciscan lost out long ago when the sisters went off the rails.
Did you know you can Reiki "treatments" there? One of the sisters started that.

As for St. Mary's, it was serious error in judgment for +Quinn to allow the chapel and masses to stay. Tell me, what really changed now that they aren't "catholic"?

Anonymous said...

I don't see this as a win for Franciscan Healthcare. The arrangement is no different than so called accommodation that HHS is forcing upon the Little Sisters of the Poor. We don't do immoral procedures in our building, that takes place in the other building for is no different then saying while our policy doesn't cover those procedures you need to contact this agent for a rider. Uncompromised Catholic healthcare was lost the day they made a deal with Mayo.

Badger Catholic said...

I say "win" only because I feel like any sense of Catholic identity had been buried away in photo albums of past generations. To say the FSPA worked together WITH the bishop on a moral issue like sterilization and agreed to not out of hand accept it is a sign of life which I thought was impossible.

Cassandra said...

What win? It requires no effort on the FSPA on this, the procedures are still being done.

The FSPA, to maintain what little credibility they have among the uninformed, get to appear as though the USCCB ERD mean something to them. They've convinced Your Blogship, haven't they?

Badger Catholic said...

The alternative is that sterilizations and abortions be done on premise. I'm well aware of the FSPA's ... history. I knew I shouldn't have used the word win. If people want an abortion in La Crosse today, hey just stroll down the street to Gunderson. There's more people than we know fighting to keep abortion off of West Ave.

Anonymous said...

What about the sterilizations being performed at St. Mary's Hospital in Madison, WI? I wish those would stop...on premises. SSM Healthcare lost there catholic identity long ago. I pray that one day through God's grace they truly get it back.

Cassandra said...

Just heard wind of a much bigger story concerning Franciscan.

Keep your ears tuned for when that one breaks.

Cassandra said...

The alternative is that sterilizations and abortions be done on premise.
What a bunch of bullshit.

The alternative was not merging with Mayo. If Mayo wanted the merger and the FSPA had an ounce of Catholicism in them, they should have said, "Well, you'll have to give up abortions and sterilizations across Mayo Health first."

This is not a "win" for Catholic identity, it's a win for Mayo Health that has been fighting to do sterilizations in La Crosse for years. Now they have what they want. Do you really think God differentiates because of an arbitrary property line? This is effectively "just across the hall", and could be literally if Franciscan wanted to sell half the building.

Look again at St. Mary's. I have friends in IT at Mayo. One told me that St. Mary's has a state of the art neo-natal facility, but deliveries had to be at Mayo because they insisted on being able to do abortions. So all newborns in trouble had to be carried off by ambulance to St. Mary's just because Mayo is fixated on child-sacrificing paganism.

Now, they just gave up the pretense and do abortions at St. Mary's.

Rah rah for Catholic identity.

Anonymous said...

What happened there?

Cassandra said...

The story just breaking now, is the insistence on Franciscan maintaining on staff a doctor that does abortions elsewhere. Apparently, there's been a year of discussions and Mayo/Franciscan has refused to move him.

Note how conveniently, the LAX Tribune and now the Rochester Post-Bulletin has been doing PR work for the FSPA and the Franciscans at Assisi Heights right as this story is about to break. (as well as the pro-abortion story in the Tribune a couple of days ago).

Expect to see a lot of PR work and fluff stories coming out.