The proposed merger of St. Vincent Regional Medical Center and Christus Health is a bad idea. If the Catholic church feels the need for a hospital in Santa Fe, it should acquire land and build one.

As the singular facility in Santa Fe, St. Vincent must provide an absolute guarantee to all members of the community, regardless of their religious affiliation, not in writing, but by virtue of their founding principles and ethics and consistent with their day-to-day management practices, that all medical care shall and will be provided to anyone and everyone in need without a superimposed religious morality.

The board is to be split 50/50 between St. Vincent and Christus personnel. Therefore, we should not be concerned about contraception education and application, abortion procedures or whether end-of-life directives will be followed. Certain safeguards will be set up for procedures normally not allowed under religious doctrine to be handled by a staff separate from that of Christus. So all is well?

Statistics show that about 50 percent of the people here are Catholic. That means
that even if Christus has its own board of directors and St. Vincent has its own, that the St. Vincent board will most likely be made up of about half Catholics.

Undoubtedly conflicts of interest will arise for some St. Vincent board members between their sense of duty to patients and their sense of duty to their church. This conflict has no place in our only community hospital.

Religion is a personal preference. It does not belong in a hospital that has a mission and obligation to serve the public at large. The presence of Catholicism in the administration of St. Vincent might make Catholics feel comforted when in need of their services, but will non-Catholics or those who do not agree with the tenets of Catholicism feel just as comforted, such as those who want their care to be influenced only by what is medically best for their health needs or end-of-life decision?

In fact, how can a Catholic organization in good faith share the operation of a hospital knowing full well that at times medical decisions in direct conflict with the teachings of the Catholic church are being made by its partners? Can the Christus board just put its collective head in the sand, so to speak?

Can the community also be assured that if the merger goes through that in time Christus' foot in the door will not become its whole body? That they will take over the entire hospital and those of us who don't want religious values imposed on our health care decisions will be the ones in conflict?

Seth Masgofian lives in Santa Fe.