Article on how religion has influenced Irish Medicine and Health policies

Its a long article, but very interesting, and it really highlights how much of a destructive force the Catholic church has had on medicine . I tried to summarise but its still very long.

Ailbhe Jordan assesses the historical and ongoing influence of the religious faith on the practice of medicine and implementation of health policy in Ireland

http://www.medicalindependent.ie/page.aspx?title=religious_zeal_and_tough_medicine

Claims made in the BBC documentary This World that Catholic Primate Dr Seán Brady helped conceal the allegations of abuse made by some of the victims of Fr Brendan Smyth, and his defiant reaction to the calls for his resignation following the broadcast, has reignited the continuing debate about the Catholic Church’s power in this country.

In few areas has this power been more keenly evident than in healthcare and medicine, where the Church has stamped its mark on health policy, medical education and training, and the implementation of emerging new surgical interventions and medical treatments.

In 1950, Minister for Health Dr Noel Browne infamously attempted to introduce free maternity care for mothers. The proposal faced fierce opposition, led by the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Dublin John Charles McQuaid, who argued that the State had no right to interfere in how families supported their children and claimed the legislation would lead to the introduction of contraception and abortion. The debacle led to the collapse of the Fine Gael government and the minister’s resignation in 1951.

The Church’s objection to the use of contraception, which was enshrined in the 1968 Papal encyclical, Humanae Vitae, delayed the legal availability of condoms and the contraceptive pill for decades. The Catholic Church in Ireland fought tooth and nail against the legalisation of condoms and the contraceptive pill. It was not until 1979 that then health minister Charles Haughey introduced the Health, in 1985, under an amendment to this Act, did condoms become legally available without prescription in Ireland.

In February 2011, Ireland became one of the last countries in Europe to make the morning after pill available over the counter following the Irish Medicines Board’s (IMB) approval of the sale of NorLevo without prescription.

The Church has also been at the forefront of the pro-life campaign against legislating for abortion in this country, even under the strictest of circumstances. A Supreme Court ruling in 1992 resulting from the X Case, allowed for women to be legally entitled to an abortion in Ireland if the mother’s life is in danger. However, successive governments have been reluctant to challenge the Church-led, pro-life lobby and transcribe this ruling into law, inspite of pressure from the European Court of Human Rights.

Just last month (april 2012), a Private Members’ Bill by TDs Clare Daly, Joan Collins and Mick Wallace calling on the Government to legislate for the X Case was rejected by 109 votes to 20.

The Catholic Church is also a central player in the debates around assisted reproduction, euthanasia and, more recently, stem cell research. In spite of the scandals that have emerged in recent years, the institution remains a strong influence in Irish life, with 84 per cent of the population describing themselves as Catholic in the last census.

A grim example of the power wielded by the Catholic Church over the medical profession is currently the subject of much debate and recrimination as the 150 or so women still alive today who were subjected to symphysiotomy during labour.

In the late 19th Century, the Church became alarmed at the increasing use of craniotomy in obstetric practice. In Queen’s University, it was routinely part of medical education but the Catholic Church took a very strong line against it. The Irish Ecclesiastical Record, which was the big Irish journal for the priesthood, had articles attacking the whole practice. While a lack of statistical information makes it difficult to estimate the number of women who may have died as a result of being denied craniotomies during labour.

During this same period between the 1860s and 1922, according to Ms Jones, the Catholic Church became intent on creating a denominational higher education system in Ireland so that it could control how Catholic university students were taught. The cause was strongly bolstered by the creation of the Catholic University (now UCD) in 1851. They wanted Catholics in the top jobs and it was about getting your own people in to crucial places. So they got at people and it worked.” This caused delays in building the hospital which, exacerbated by shortages of building materials throughout the 1940s, meant that it was 1956 when Our Lady’s Children’s Hospital, Crumlin finally opened. “It’s as stark as that – politics triumphed over compassion,” she said. “Children did die. They died in the 1930s and in the 1940s because they didn’t have a hospital.

TB control
The league was non-religious and its committee comprised both Catholic and Protestant members. However, Archbishop McQuaid was alarmed that the Protestant Trinity College-educated Ms Doherty was seen to be spearheading such an important initiative.

“He went to huge lengths behind the scenes to ensure that this would work. He approached the head of the Irish Red Cross. He even went as far as approaching Eamon de Valera, who was Taoiseach at the time. He approached Sean McEntee, the Minister for Local Government and Public Health. He got in touch with the Minister for Defensive Affairs who would have been in charge of the Red Cross. There were activation letters and phone calls going around, making sure that this happened.”

The Archbishop refused to attend the meeting, instead sending his representative Monsignor Maloney who read out a letter stating that he believed the Irish Red Cross [at the time an association with a strong Catholic ethos] should assume responsibility for any anti-tuberculosis campaigns. The campaign eventually faltered and was subsumed into the Irish Red Cross, ensuring that Ireland remained one of the few developed countries at that time without a national anti-tuberculosis league.

Dr Mac Lellan believes that the Catholic Church’s interference “hugely diluted the effect that might have been achieved by the group. It meant that an awful lot of the things they said they were going to do simply didn’t happen, a lot of the medical interventions and so on,” until the State assumed responsibility for tuberculosis later in the 1940s.

Needle exchange
In the 1980s, following the discovery of AIDS, intravenous drug misusers were quickly identified as a high-risk group, leading to the introduction of needle exchange programmes in many countries. Dr Colm O’Mahony, from the Department of Genitourinary Medicine (GUM) and HIV at the Countess of Chester NHS Foundation Trust, diagnosed the first AIDS patient in Ireland in 1985 and was instrumental in campaigning for needle exchange programmes to be introduced here.

“I remember writing to the Minister saying ‘this is what you have to do, Merseyside has hardly any HIV positive drug addicts now because of the needle exchange programme in the 1970s, whereas Dublin is decimated’.”

However, the proposal faced fierce opposition from the Catholic right-wing lobby and Dr O’Mahony was even informed by the Minister for Health in the 1980s that introducing such a programme would be seen as ‘condoning immoral behaviour’. Furthermore, he recalls a leaflet being distributed by the Children’s Protection Society around the time entitled ‘67 Reasons Why Condoms Spread AIDS’.

As recently as 1991, Dr O’Mahony was still campaigning for a needle exchange prog-ramme after returning to Dublin to do some locum clinics, where he was seeing “hundreds of HIV-positive drug addicts”. He said there are 40,000 regular drug injectors in Merseyside and a HIV population of around 2,500 to 3,000, but only 50 HIV positive drug users. In Dublin, almost 50 per cent of all injecting drug users are HIV positive.

“The Irish response was pathetic and disgraceful; there’s no other way to put it. Any politicians who had any part in that should hang their heads in shame,” he said.

Legacy issues
Even today the legacy of the power once held by the Catholic Church over the medical profession is still very much in evidence. Gay Doctors Ireland (GDI) were recently forced to go before the Dail and the Seanad to demand the repeal of Section 37.1 of the Employment Equality Act which specifically empowers religious “medical institutions” to discriminate against persons deemed “undermining” of its “religious ethos” or to give “more favourable treatment” to persons where “it is reasonable to do so in order to maintain [that] religious ethos”.

“Any employee working in Irish hospitals with a religious ethos or charter can be affected by S37.1, especially in terms of their initial recruitment and subsequent promotion,” GDI Chair Dr Leslie Hannon said.

Even within the profession, a small but significant number of practitioners consider Catholic teachings in some of the decisions they make. The Irish Catholic Doctors’ Association is an active group of around 60 members which meets two or three times a year.

As a practising Catholic, however, Dr Kehoe objects, as one might expect, to procedures such as abortion, artificial contraception and euthanasia. However, there are other, less obvious medical issues that can also cause conflict for Catholic doctors.

“The Catholic Church teaches that sex outside marriage is not good. It would be better within marriage,” he said.
“So, if a man comes to me and he has a problem with erectile dysfunction, he needs Viagra or something like that, and I know he’s not a married man, while I’m not saying I’ll refuse it outright, it’s not black and white.