The guidelines also state that Catholic facilities may not promote contraceptive practices, but rather, may instruct in responsible parenthood and methods of natural family planning. No Medicaid patient is ever being denied access to any service. All Catholic facilities and managed care organizations in this state are governed by the Public Health Law and related regulations. The State Department of Health, which interprets and enforces this law, continually licenses Catholic entities, making determinations that there is nothing in our ethical directives which violate the law. Neither state nor federal law mandates direct medical provision or direct referrals by every provider for all services, including family planning, abortion or sterilization.
Nobody has to provide everything.
Catholic hospitals, including the 41 Catholic hospitals in New York State, have been operating under the Bishops' ethical directives for many years. The Church has a 2,000 year old tradition of providing essential medical care to the poor, the sick and the most vulnerable. The rapid changes in the health care industry today serve to reaffirm the Church's aim to provide quality health care to underserved communities which may be in danger of losing services because of economic hardship. Children would go without flu shots, accident victims without access to emergency rooms, and elderly citizens without needed medicines and hip replacements. Increasingly, Catholic entities are protecting financially-distressed smaller, public hospitals in both urban and rural areas, and, in doing so, are ensuring continued health care to needy communities.