On Saturday the 24th of November we held an information stall on the Main Street of Celbridge. The aim was to let people know about the Campaign Against Church Ownership of Women’s Healthcare demonstration (December 8th More information here), and our own ‘Postcard to Simon Harris’ campaign. We believe that new National Maternity Hospital should be owned and run by the state, and have a secular charter.
Under the current plan the government will spend €350,000,000 on an asset that will be handed over to a private organisation that currently owes €50,000,000 to the redress scheme for victims of abuse in residential homes that they ran.
The government plans to build the new National Maternity Hospital on the grounds of St Vincent’s Hospital. This will hand ownership to a private company (St Vincent’s Hospital Group) run by a charity (St Vincent’s), which is owned by the ‘Sisters of Charity’ religious order.
While the minister claims that the hospital will be free of religious influence, they cannot compel them to provide services that conflict with the hospital’s ethos. This includes fertility treatments, abortion care, sterilisation on demand (tubal ligation and vasectomy), contraception and gender transitioning surgery. The Sisters of Charity have already stated that the future directors of St Vincent’s must uphold the “values and vision” of their founder Mother Mary Aikenhead. The chair of the board of the new NMH will be selected from St Vincent’s and the Master of the hospital is to report to St Vincent’s. This will mean that they will be obliged to follow Catholic medical ethics rather than the best evidence based medical standards of care (as stated by Professor Vincent Twomey in the Sunday Times on April 29th 2018).
Under the current plan the government will spend €350,000,000 on an asset that will be handed over to a private organisation that currently owes €50,000,000 to the redress scheme for victims of abuse in residential homes that they ran.
Many of the people who stopped to talk to us had no idea of this issue and if they did know were very clear in their support for what we were doing. Dozens of them signed postcards and the petition and many took the information leaflets. We asked people to attend the December 8th demonstration being organised by the Campaign Against Church Ownership of Women’s Healthcare to show the minister how important this issue is.
We are asking Minister Simon Harris to ensure that hard work of so many during the repeal campaign is not undermined when this hospital is built. It must be a state-owned secular hospital where decision about care are based on the best medical evidence.
Written by Anna McMahon
Kildare Feminist Network 