Following opposition from pro-life and pro-choice groups, and largely due to "changes in health care reform," officials from Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center and Catholic Medical Center in Manchester cancelled plans for a hospital affiliation, Rick Adams, media relations manager for DHMC, said in an interview with The Dartmouth. The decision to cease the collaboration which was announced March 10 was also attributable to the length of time it was taking to pass the filing of the partnership through court, according to Adams.
CMC spokeswoman Morgan Smith and Adams both declined to comment on the specific health care reforms that led to the cancellation.
Under the proposed affiliation, originally filed with the Hillsborough County Probate court on June 21, 2010, the DHMC facilities in Manchester would have integrated its physician practice group services with the services of CMC under its parent company, CMC Healthcare System.
CMC Healthcare System would have been incorporated into a regional health care delivery system overseen and controlled by Dartmouth-Hitchcock Health, according to a report released by the New Hampshire Attorney General Michael Delaney last May.
The affiliation was originally intended to allow the organizations to expand specialty services and improve coordination of inpatient and outpatient care, The Dartmouth previously reported.
Although DHMC and CMC have withdrawn their filing, they will still pursue shared programs and continue to collaborate in various capacities, as they have done for over six years, according to a DHMC press release.
DHMC and CMC currently collaborate in the Norris Cotton Cancer Center and The Mom's Place, CMC's center for new and expecting mothers, according to Adams.
DHMC does not have any proposals for further collaboration with CMC, but will continue to pursue collaborations and partnerships with other medical organizations, Adams said.
Critics of the proposal have continued to raise concerns with CMC and DHMC's current partnership, even despite the withdrawal of their affiliation filing.
"We're still going to have to keep an eye on access to women's health care and how that's being provided by Dartmouth doctors at [CMC]," New Hampshire Public Affairs Director for Planned Parenthood Kary Jencks said.
CMC does not allow for women to have a tubal ligation, a sterilization procedure many women opt to undergo at the same time as a Caesarean section, according to Jencks.
Women delivering at CMC must find a different facility and undergo an additional surgery to have a tubal ligation procedure performed, she said.
Family planning conversations which doctors usually have with pregnant couples approximately eight weeks after the birth of the child at CMC are also a point of concern for Planned Parenthood, according to Jencks.
"I still don't understand where or how that conversation happens, because technically that conversation can't happen at CMC," Jencks said.
Members of the Catholic community who opposed the affiliation are also still apprehensive about DHMC and CMC's current collaboration, according to former State Rep. Barbara Hagan, R-Hillsborough, the former president and chairwoman of New Hampshire Right to Life.
Hagan has joined a group of Catholics who have filed a complaint to the Vatican regarding President and CEO of CMC Alyson Pitman Giles-Fache's support of the proposed affiliation.
"We don't believe this is done and gone," Hagan said in an interview with The Dartmouth. "This is about preserving the Catholic identity of a hospital that is near and dear to me."
A current representative for the New Hampshire Right to Life could not be reached for comment by press time.
When the potential affiliation between DHMC and CMC was first announced, representatives from Planned Parenthood and the American Civil Liberties Union voiced concerns at a community forum that the affiliation might prevent doctors at the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Clinic from continuing to make abortion referrals, The Dartmouth previously reported.
At the same forum, Catholic residents of Manchester and members of various Catholic groups said they worried that the affiliation would enable CMC doctors to provide patients with contraceptives or make abortion referrals, The Dartmouth previously reported.
