Church leads world in health-care for women, Cardinal Pell reminds doctors

Speaking in Canberra at an international conference on women’s health, Cardinal George Pell of Sydney reminded doctors that the Catholic Church is the world’s largest provider of health-care services for women. 

Operating 117,000 hospitals and clinics, the Catholic Church accounts for more than 25% of the world’s entire health-care services, the cardinal observed. 

Regarding the approach taken to treatment of women at these facilities, he said: "Catholics understand the relationship between doctor and patient according to the Hippocratic idea, rather than the more modern notion of a doctor simply being a service provider to the consumer."