Health Needs Suffer When People Seen Only as Workers, Bishop Says

When people's health is seen primarily in relation to their ability to work, an economic downturn results in less attention to the health needs of the population, said Bishop Michael J. Bransfield of Wheeling-Charleston, W.Va., in a recent talk.

"As long as health care remains part of the social capital overhead of economic activity, the health needs of people are measured by their value to work," the bishop said at the 2008 Conference on Catholic Social Teaching and Access to Health Care in the United States.

"When that economic activity falters and the demand for workers declines, so will the health care, and other forms of social capital, invested in them," he added.

But Bishop Bransfield suggested several ways that Catholics, as part of "a church that heals," can lead the way in reforming attitudes toward health and societal practices that reflect a "moral understanding of the sacred and social nature of human beings."

The bishop's talk opened the March 26-27 conference at Villanova University near Philadelphia. Other speakers at the conference included John Bouman, president of the Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law; Sister Carol Keehan, a Daughter of Charity who is president and CEO of the Catholic Health Association; and theologian and ethicist Lisa Sowle Cahill of Boston College.

Most of Bishop Bransfield's talk, titled "A Church That Heals: Sign of Hope for Appalachia and Beyond," focused on the church's role in contributing to both a better health care system and better health for individuals.