SLU's HOSPITAL SALE IS CLOSELY WATCHED

For a variety of reasons, the planned sale of Saint Louis University's hospital in the city of St. Louis has attracted a lot of attention. Because the university is run by Jesuits, many Catholics are interested in the issues that have been raised. Because nearly everyone will need hospitalization at one time or another, there is a good deal of interest purely from the perspective of providing good health care.

But the most interest of all may result from the contest of strong wills, a contest whose rules are a blend of church law and civil law. The president of the university and the board of the hospital staunchly defend their decision to sell the hospital to Tenet Healthcare Corp., a company that owns and operates hospitals all over the country and whose aim is to make a profit.

Reportedly, the Tenet offer was some $100 million more than another offer from a partnership of two Catholic-run health systems. And this is the starting point, at least, of the ensuing controversy.

Saint Louis University operates one of the few Catholic medical schools in the country. Its hospital not only provides health care to all who seek treatment, but also serves as a teaching hospital for doctors-to-be. The $100 million bonus of the Tenet offer is enough to prevent the medical school from closing in about 10 years, university officials say.

On the other side of the debate, however, are church officials -- high-ranking prelates reaching all the way to the Vatican -- who are genuinely concerned more about the theological reasons for operating a hospital than the bottom-line reasons of most private businesses. In fact, a Vatican undersecretary for Catholic education, Giuseppe Baldazo, says that making a profit from health care is contrary to the Gospel call to heal the sick.

One of the arguing points has been whether or not the university's hospital is a Catholic hospital at all. Some claim that turning the hospital over to a mostly lay board as long ago as the 1960s in effect made it a nonsectarian hospital. Many church leaders respond that the hospital has always had a strong Catholic identity -- so much so that it received donations from many Catholics who thought they were giving to a church-run institution.

Any community with a Catholic hospital -- and there are many, including Cape Girardeau -- can identify in some ways with the give-and-take in St. Louis. Perhaps the best that can be said of the debate over the Saint Louis University hospital is that the glare of public attention is forcing both sides to weigh their arguments carefully. In the end, this attention may produce a positive outcome that will be in the best interests of health care and of the church.