Colorado Hospital Stops Offering Tube Tie Procedures

Mercy Hospital, a Catholic hospital in Durango that is part of the Centura Health System has stopped offering to provide tube-tying procedures for those who want them. Though Colorado has one of the least restrictive reproductive health laws in the country, many advocates argue that women in rural parts of the state still lack appropriate access.

Doctors at Mercy Hospital said that they were told beginning April 15th, they would no longer be permitted to perform post-cesarean tube litigations. People who have chosen to not have additional children will often have their tubes tied immediately after a C-section, while they are still under anesthesia so as to not have to schedule an additional surgery.

The hospital already prohibited tubal ligations after vaginal births but had been allowing them after C-sections because it had been considered an undue burden to make patients schedule a separate surgery at another hospital. Obstetricians have now had to break the news to patients that they will have to seek permanent birth control elsewhere.

“Patients are furious,” said Dr. Kimberly Priebe, who delivers 90-100 babies a year and has been an obstetrician-gynecologist in Durango for 20 years. “This decision undermines our patients’ trust in Centura.”

This decision comes after the overturning of Roe V. Wade, which granted a constitutional right to bodily autonomy and reproductive health by the Supreme Court. Even in Colorado, a state with statutory protection for abortion and one of the least restrictive abortion laws in the country, women are losing access to reproductive health care, particularly in rural and mountain areas where there is only one hospital in town, according to physicians and other health advocates.

Colorado lawmakers and members of the state’s Pro-choice caucus including; U.S. Reps. Diana DeGette (D-CO), Yadira Caraveo (D-CO), Jason Crow (D-CO), Joe Neguse (D-CO), and Brittany Pettersen (D-CO) released the following statement regarding the matter.

“Every Coloradan, regardless of their zip code, has the right to bodily autonomy and deserves access to the full spectrum of reproductive health care—including permanent birth control measures. As the only hospital in Durango with a maternity ward, Mercy Hospital’s decision to no longer provide patients with tubal ligations, including after a c-section, undermines Coloradans’ right to access the care they need.”

“Medical decisions should be made between a patient and their provider, and no one else. As members of the Colorado delegation in the U.S. House of Representatives and proud members of the Congressional Pro-Choice Caucus, we are committed to ensuring everyone in our state has access to a full range of reproductive health care services. We believe Centura Health should reconsider this policy change. Our constituents must be able to access the care they need and deserve.”

In Denver, doctors affiliated with Centura Health can steer patients who want their tubes tied after giving birth to the system’s Adventist hospitals instead of its Catholic ones. But in Durango and other towns with just one hospital, that’s not an option.

“We really are seeing a trend with hospitals, insurance companies, pharmacies, other health care entities, discriminating against people by denying basic care … all in the name of religion,” said Sophia Mayott-Guerrero, senior organizing strategist with ACLU of Colorado. The main target, she said, is reproductive access, including birth control, emergency contraception, sterilization and abortions.