HSHS St. John’s Hospital in Springfield recently removed crucifixes from the emergency department and patient rooms out of a concern for safety.
The systemwide decision was relayed to staff last month. HSHS operates 15 hospitals and an integrated physician network across Illinois and Wisconsin, including St. John's Hospital in Springfield, St. Mary's in Decatur and St. Francis in Litchfield.
A spokeswoman for the Hospital Sisters Health System wrote to NPR Illinois, “We realize safety is an important concern for our colleagues, which is why we continually assess the safety of our care environments. This is another of many steps we are taking to further eliminate access to items that could potentially allow a patient to harm themselves or others, including our staff.
“Our facilities and supply chain services have worked closely with our spiritual care leaders to research multiple options and identified several crosses that will be utilized for replacement and secured appropriately,’’ she commented.
“St. John’s Hospital strives to be a safe, healing environment for patients and colleagues, and aggression is not tolerated. HSHS thanks the community for its ongoing support of their local health care workers,” she wrote.
The spokeswoman did not say whether a specific incident caused the decision.
