Hospitals and Religion

4 views

Skip to first unread message

unread,

May 26, 2019, 12:33:35 AM5/26/19

to Centroids Discussions, Billy Rojas

Hospitals and Religion

What does sponsorship of medical care, or lack of such sponsorship, say about a religion?

To be sure, sometimes it is difficult to make comparisons. The Catholic Church and the

established Protestant denominations have been with us for centuries and therefore

have had a lot of time to create hospitals and other medical institutions; other religious

groups, like Pentecostals, only have a one-century tradition. Still, we can compare

other groups like the 7th Day Adventists with Pentecostals and the 7th Day people

have only been with us for a little more than a century and one-half.

There are about 6,000 hospitals in the USA, plus several thousand more other kinds

of medical institutions like clinics and home care religion-sponsored organizations.

Of the hospitals, about 1200 have some kind of religion sponsorship. By far the largest

is the Catholic group, with about 800 hospitals, and several hundred "other" medical

organizations. It is hard to be more specific because there is very little aggregating

of medical care by religion on the Web. Still, there is some, and it is possible to

offer a few generalizations.

The next largest religion sponsor of hospitals and clinics, etc, are the Baptists;

in some cities in the South most hospitals are Baptist. My best guess is that

there are around 250 Baptist hospitals even if most are smaller than the

Catholic hospitals which tend to be very large. Like the one in Springfield, OR,

which is so big that you could put all the other hospitals in the county

inside the Catholic hospital and throw in the hospitals in several

nearby counties.

Presbyterians have a lot of hospitals also, as another guess, maybe 100.

Methodists also have maybe 100 hospitals. And there are some non-denominational

but "Christian" hospitals in America, but I cannot give you a realistic number.

Here is the kicker, the 7th Day Adventists sponsor some 92 medical institutions,

only a few hospitals, about 25, the rest being clinics or health finance groups

or the like. Still, for their size, these Christians sure make health a major

priority. Not even to count 7th Day stress on healthy foods

and healthy life styles.

Not that there actually are none at all, but I looked and looked and could not find

even one (1) Pentecostal hospital in the United States. Zero.

Who can say? Maybe there are a few. Compared to the 7th Day people, though,

which are not even 10% as large in numbers, this still would tell a story.

Even if you knew nothing else, this, it seems to me, says all that you need to know