KFF Health News

Nuns founded and led Catholic hospitals to treat sick and poor people. But over time, a focus on margins led the hospitals to transform into behemoths that operate for-profit subsidiaries and pay their executives millions.

The town is a microcosm of how immigration is reshaping communities throughout the United States. In the Springfield area, Catholic charities, other philanthropies, volunteers, and county agencies have banded together over the past three to four years to tackle the challenge and connect immigrants who have critical health needs with providers and care.

When Anna Nusslock showed up at Providence St. Joseph Hospital 15 weeks pregnant and in severe pain, a doctor delivered devastating news: The twins she and her husband had so desperately wanted were not viable. Further, her own health was in danger, and she needed an emergency abortion to prevent hemorrhaging and infection. St. Joseph's, in the small Northern California coastal city of Eureka, refused to provide the care she required because doctors could detect fetal "heart tones."