|
|
|
Friday, September 9, 2011, 11:13 am |
|
This story appeared in the September 9, 2011 Edition of the Courier-Journal.
ACLU, C-J ask Conway
to declare
University Hospital public
By
Patrick Howington
The question of whether University Hospital is a public institution — an
issue in the controversial plan to merge the University of Louisville’s main
teaching hospital with two other health-care systems — has been placed before
Kentucky Attorney General Jack Conway.
ACLU of Kentucky and The Courier-Journal have asked Conway to review recent
refusals by University Medical Center Inc., which does business as University
Hospital, to provide documents they sought under the Kentucky Open Records Act.
UMC turned down both requests on grounds that
it is a nonprofit corporation rather than a public agency and therefore isn’t
subject to the act.
A Kentucky attorney general’s open-records opinion has the force of law, but
can be appealed to circuit court.
Conway’s decision likely would not affect the pending merger, since questions
other than open records are involved in officials’ ongoing review of the deal’s
legality. Conway and state Auditor Crit Luallen are conducting that review for
Gov. Steve Beshear, whose approval of the transaction is needed.
|
|
Read more...
|
|
|
Wednesday, July 20, 2011, 12:54 pm |
|
This letter to the editor appeared in the July 20th edition of the Courier-Journal.
In a June 7 Op-Ed in The Courier-Journal, leaders of
University Hospital, Jewish/St. Mary's Hospitals and St. Joseph Health
System declared that the merger of their institutions would aid the
community and would not result in a “reduction in services available to
the community ... includ[ing] family planning and reproductive health
services.”
But they failed to identify how the newly merged entity
would ensure the continued availability of such services, particularly
in light of the Catholic Ethical Directives (ERDs) — the religious-based
directives largely banning those services in Catholic-owned hospitals.
We raised this question, and others, in a June 16 letter to the editor
and called upon University Hospital officials to be more transparent
about the effects on reproductive health services that will result from
the merger and what plans, if any, they have to maintain the current
level of health services to Louisville's poor.
Sadly, Sunday's article in The Courier-Journal confirmed
that those services will be discontinued at University Hospital — a
state-created hospital funded by state and local tax dollars — which
will, as a result of the merger, effectively operate as a Catholic, not
public, institution. As was highlighted in the article, University
Hospital will no longer offer tubal ligations to women due to the ERDs.
|
|
Read more...
|
|
|
Saturday, July 2, 2011, 1:23 pm |
|
The ACLU of
Kentucky would like to express our deepest sympathies to the family and friends
of Carl Wedekind, who passed away this morning, July 2, 2011 at the age of 85.
A memorial service for Carl Wedekind will take place on Thursday, July 7 at 2:00pm at the First Unitarian Church, 809 South Fourth Street, Louisville, Kentucky.
Carl’s
contributions to the ACLU of Kentucky, and indeed to our wider community, were
voluminous. He was a vigilant
advocate for abolishing the death penalty and a defender of civil liberties on
all fronts.
At the ACLU, he
served in numerous leadership roles including Chair, Vice-Chair, Treasurer,
Chair of the Finance Committee, and National Board Representative. In 2010, he received the Thomas L.
Hogan Award – our highest honor – to recognize his contributions to the
advancement and preservation of civil liberties.
On that occasion,
we asked several peers to share with us a few stories about Carl. Some of those thoughts are included
below.
Rest in Peace
Carl, we are eternally grateful to have known you.
Many of you have known the roles —
leader, mentor, advocate, sage — for which Carl so richly deserves this
award. But I had the rare pleasure
of practicing law with Carl, years after he left active practice, in what I
think was his last case. It was
1997, the electrocution of Harold McQueen. Our affiliate filed state and federal court challenges to
that method of execution. Day
after day, I got to watch Carl brush off the rust as we planned strategy,
produced pleadings and briefs, and researched and debated complex legal
points. And I saw him experience
the emotional extremes familiar to litigators, as we won, then lost on appeal,
an injunction blocking the execution.
Carl maintained his spirits, and helped lift ours, that weekend in July,
as we churned out (what we knew would be futile) briefs to the full appeals
court and U.S. Supreme Court, seeking to block the Monday night execution. We all benefitted from Carl’s
calm maturity and eloquent passion as we waited, unable to do other work, for
the painful phone calls from those courts late Monday. Tom Hogan would be proud of Carl; I
sure am.
David Friedman
|
|
Read more...
|
|
| << Start < Prev 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Next > End >>
| | Results 13 - 15 of 89 |
|
Archive
-
September, 2011
-
August, 2011
-
April, 2011
-
March, 2011
-
February, 2011
-
January, 2011
-
November, 2010
-
September, 2010
-
August, 2010
-
June, 2010
-
April, 2010
-
March, 2010
-
February, 2010
-
January, 2010
-
December, 2009
-
October, 2009
-
September, 2009
-
August, 2009
-
June, 2009
-
May, 2009
-
April, 2009
-
March, 2009
-
January, 2009
-
November, 2008
-
October, 2008
-
July, 2008
-
June, 2008
-
May, 2008
-
April, 2008
-
March, 2008
|
American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky
