Why are so many hospitals (in the US at least) associated with religious orders and/or faith-based?
Posted Oct 7, 2014, 3:45 AM UTC
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[deleted]
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Because religious orders are big on opening hospitals? That whole "helping people" thing that religions are good at?
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No, they open the hospital and make the taxpayers pay for it, but then they can keep their name on it, which makes them look good, and push around the administration to restrict patients' health care decisions according to the dictates of their religion.
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Except that's not how it happens.
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Many religious institutions open hospitals as an act of charity.
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In part because caring for the sick is seen as a virtue or duty by most most all denominations. Quite a few religious orders are founded on care for the sick or the poor as a specific mission, caring for the sick is allied with the mission of many orders that aren't specifically about caring for the sick.
A skeptical view would be that hospitals are an ideal setting to convert and proselytize, I think that proselytizing is a very minor part of the picture though.
Religions also can raise money for things that states and municipalities have a hard time selling to taxpayers.
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[deleted]
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Before medical care was a division of Big Business, it used to be done by charitable organizations.