The Office for Civil Rights (OCR) at the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced the resolution of two religious discrimination complaints ensuring clergy access to patients for religious purposes during the COVID-19 pandemic, one involving MedStar’s Southern Maryland Hospital Center (MSMHC) that is part of the MedStar Health System, and the second one involving Mary Washington Healthcare (MWHC) in Virginia.
In the first matter, in July 2020, OCR’s Conscience and Religious Freedom Division (CRFD) received a complaint from a mother alleging that after giving birth alone at MSMHC, she was separated from her newborn child because she had tested positive for COVID-19 upon admission to the hospital. Shaken by the involuntary separation, the Complainant requested that a Catholic priest be allowed to visit her newborn son to baptize him, but according to her complaint, the hospital denied her request due to a visitor exclusion policy adopted in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
In the second matter, in August 2020, the Diocese of Arlington filed a complaint with CRFD alleging that MWHC would not permit a priest to provide the Catholic religious sacraments of Holy Communion and Anointing of the Sick to a COVID-positive patient who was in an end-of-life situation and whose family requested that the priest visit the patient to provide those religious sacraments.
