Doctors at Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) hospitals nationwide could refuse to treat unmarried veterans and Democrats under new hospital guidelines according to an executive order signed by Trump.
Medical staff are still required to treat veterans regardless of race, color, religion and sex, and all veterans remain entitled to treatment. But individual workers are now free to decline to care for patients based on personal characteristics not explicitly prohibited by federal law.
Along with doctors, other individuals are allowed to decline treatment including psychologists, dentists, chiropractors, certified nurse practitioners, optometrists, podiatrists, licensed clinical social workers and speech therapists.
Language requiring healthcare professionals to care for veterans regardless of their politics and marital status has been explicitly eliminated. Doctors and other medical staff can also be barred from working at VA hospitals based on their marital status, political party affiliation or union activity.
The January order, titled “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government,” was primarily to strip transgenders of government protections.
VA press secretary, Peter Kasperowicz, did not dispute that the new rules allowed doctors to refuse to treat veteran patients based on their beliefs or that physicians could be dismissed based on their marital status or political affiliation, but said “all eligible veterans will always be welcome at VA and will always receive the benefits and services they’ve earned under the law.”
More at The Guardian
