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?
Been going to see my mom in a heavily Catholic-coded hospital. I highly doubt that many people working in the place are themselves Catholic. I also trust that they would not refuse to perform a procedure that contradicts Catholic faith.
The only reason I'm fine with existing hospitals being Judeo-Christian-coded is that hospitals as we understand them in The West have their origins in the Christian church and newer hospitals tend to lack this coding. Just today, I was wandering through the halls and stumbled across the "spiritual healing room" which contained...how do I put it? Artifacts? Icons?...of multiple non-western faiths.
I guess in the end, whether you profess a religion or not, humans have spiritual needs. Somebody going through the sort of thing that requires visiting a hospital is likely to have greater spiritual needs.