Hospital ends service agreement with Sandpoint non-profit

Doctors refuse to sign statement of faith

NEWPORT — Newport Hospital and Health Services terminated a personal services agreement for OB/ GYN services with an Idaho-based, anti-abortion non-profit after it came to light that the hospital’s doctors would be required to sign a statement of faith that they are committed to “sexual purity,” aren’t in a gay marriage and that they “know Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior.”

Life Choices Pregnancy Center, Inc.

7B Care Clinic, said the statement was disclosed to Pend Oreille County Public Hospital District No. 1 (NHHS) prior to entering the PSA. The hospital district said it was not.

“The District was not informed during negotiations that its providers would be required to individually subscribe to religious doctrines, ministry principles, or additional conditions of participation as a prerequisite to providing services under the PSA,” CFO Justin Peters wrote in a letter to Life Choices Pregnancy Center, Inc. 7B Care Clinic, terminating the PSA dated June 3.

7B and NHHS entered into a PSA in May that would allow for six of the district’s doctors to provide family medicine services to patients at 7B’s Sandpoint location. Under the agreement, services would be provided one day every other week depending on physicians’ availability. All providers must be licensed to practice medicine in Washington and Idaho. Hours for those visits were between 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., or noon to 4 p.m. The clinic would pay the hospital district for services based on a rate of $200 per hour.

In a report to the NHHS administration and board of commissioners, CEO Kim Manus said the statement of faith was brought to her attention when the doctor who was scheduled to work the first clinic visit on June 2 showed the document to NHHS leadership. The doctor had refused to sign the statement.

In the document, Life Pregnancy Center outlines its mission, vision and statement of faith. The statement asserts outlines that Life Pregnancy Center is committed to providing clients with free services and accurate and complete information about prenatal development and potential risks involved in an abortion. Clinic staff and volunteers do not recommend, provide or refer for abortion or abortifacients. Nor do they recommend, provide or refer single women for contraceptives.

“Married women and their husbands seeking this information are urged to counsel with their pastor and physician,” the document reads. “We are committed to presenting the Gospel of our Lord to women and men faced with unplanned pregnancies, both in word and deed.”

It goes on to say that those who work as pregnancy center staff, board members, directors and volunteers are “expected to know Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior and to conduct their lives in accordance with Biblical principles.”

“Thus, each person who is single must be committed to sexual purity and those married must be in a heterosexual marriage consisting of one biological man and one biological woman,” the document reads.

Physicians working for the hospital district and providing services at 7B Care Clinic would be required by Life Pregnancy Center to sign the statement under the words, “I have read and agree fully with the above statements.”

Manus said that when hospital administration and physicians were made aware of the statement on June 2, the official letter was sent to Life Pregnancy Center on June 3 terminating the PSA with the 7B Care Clinic.

“We were surprised by the assertion that the Statement of Faith and Statement of Principle were not disclosed prior to execution of the Agreement or that their existence was concealed during negotiations,” Life Choices Pregnancy Center, Inc. 7B Care Clinic Executive Director Janine Shepard wrote in a letter to hospital board members dated June 10. “Life Choices Pregnancy Center has always operated as a Christian, faith-based ministry. Our mission, public communications, governing documents, website, and organizational practices clearly reflect that identity. At no time did we attempt to conceal our religious nature or the values that guide our ministry.”

Shepard goes on to say that during the negotiation process, she raised the issue of the statement of faith and asked whether participating providers would be willing to sign it. Shepard said that one of the Newport doctors said that all the providers listed were Christian and, “It would not be a problem.”

Additionally, she said in the letter that copies of the statement of faith were provided to CFO Justin Peters at a meeting held at Newport Hospital on April 29, and that Peters distributed the copies to those in attendance.

“Had we been informed at that time that the Statement of Faith presented a concern or conflict for the District or its providers, we would have welcomed the opportunity to discuss the issue further before significant time and resources were invested by either party,” Shepard said.

In a follow-up interview, hospital district public information officer Jenny Smith denied Shepard’s claim that one of the doctors said it wouldn’t be a problem for the doctors serving 7B Care Clinic to sign the statement.

“Our doctors had not seen the Statement of Faith, nor anyone else from NHHS during the process of the agreement (with Life Choices Pregnancy Center),” Smith said.

While the PSA description of services does require that doctors will not discuss abortion or birth control with 7B Care Clinic clients, Manus maintains in her report that at no point was the Statement of Faith and Principles brought up in negotiations.

“I personally attended the meeting (on April 29); a copy of this document was not handed out,” Manus said.

Smith said the reason the hospital district formed a PSA with Life Choices Pregnancy Center was to help serve the increase in clients seeking OB/GYN services. According to news reports, 7B Care Clinic saw their client intake double after Bonner General Health in Sandpoint ended its labor and delivery services in May 2023 due to Idaho’s restrictive abortion laws.

Without specifically referencing the state’s abortion laws, the hospital said the “legal and political climate” was causing physicians to leave the hospital, and it was becoming difficult to recruit replacements. Bonner General officials also cited a loss of pediatricians to provide neonatal and perinatal care and fewer babies being born at the hospital as reasons why the maternity ward was closing.

By December 2024, more than two years after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned nationwide abortion rights in its Dobbs decision, Idaho had lost a third of its OB/GYNs, according to JAMA Network, a comprehensive online medical platform published by the American Medical Association.

Requests for comment from Shepard were not returned before the newspaper’s deadline.

SOPHIA MATTICE-ALDOUS IS A MURROW NEWS FELLOW WORKING DIRECTLY WITH NEWSROOMS AT THE NEWPORT MINER AND RANGE MEDIA THROUGH A PROGRAM ADMINISTERED BY WASHINGTON STATE UNIVERSITY. HER REPORTING IS AVAILABLE FOR USE VIA CREATIVE COMMONS WITH CREDIT.