🤍 We are a coalition trying to preserve evidence-based + inclusive health care upon merger of Ellis Medicine & St. Peter’s Health Partners / Trinity Health.

When hospitals merge, our services are threatened.

A history of hospital mergers in the New York State Capital Region since 2000:

Source: New York State Nurses Association

On August 13, 2025, We joined New York State Nurses Association (NYSNA) joined forces, elected officials, and community allies to hold a town hall meeting, demanding that Ellis Medicine restore surgical services at Bellevue Woman’s Center. Ellis had cut most surgical services at Bellevue in the operating room and outpatient settings and drastically pulled the timeline forward, ending them on August 22, 2025 instead of December 2025.  

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Ellis Medicine must protect patients’ rights & resist religious restrictions on the care our families need.

Ellis Medicine (which includes Ellis Hospital, Bellevue Woman’s Center, the McClellan Street Health Center and the Medical Center of Clifton Park) is planning a merger with St. Peter’s Health Partners, which is part of the giant Trinity Catholic health system. Already, St. Peter’s/Trinity is managing Ellis Hospital and has taken over Ellis physician practices.

Why is this concerning? St. Peter’s and Trinity operate under Catholic health restrictions that prohibit the delivery of key reproductive health services, gender-affirming care and certain end-of-life treatment options and can delay or deny care for pregnancy emergencies, such as miscarriages and ectopic pregnancies.

Which Ellis Medicine services are threatened by the planned merger with St. Peter’s/Trinity?

  1. Reproductive care, including contraception, abortion, tubal ligations, vasectomies and infertility services.

  2. LGBTQ+-inclusive care, including gender affirming treatments and surgeries.

  3. Patient’s rights to end-of-life self-determination, such as choosing death with dignity.

  • Ellis and St. Peter’s announced a “pause” on the planned merger after numerous protests by people in the community, including members of our Schenectady Coalition for Healthcare Access. But then they quietly negotiated a management services agreement by which Ellis is now paying St. Peter’s to manage Ellis Medicine. Moreover, St. Peter's began to employ Ellis physicians. The NYS Department of Health approved the management services agreement over our written letters of protests, through a behind-the-scenes process that included no public hearings. The physician practice takeovers did not require any state approval.

  • When St. Peter’s Health Partners took over Samaritan Hospital in Troy several years ago, a creative solution was found to save access to post-partum tubal ligations and contraceptive counseling. (Tubal ligation, commonly called “having your tubes tied,” is a common service for women who have just delivered a child and do not want future pregnancies). A separate non-religious “hospital-within-a-hospital” was created – the Burdett Care Center, on the second floor of Samaritan Hospital. The rest of Samaritan Hospital came under Catholic restrictions. But, within a few years, the Burdett Care Center was closed as an independent hospital and absorbed into Samaritan Hospital. Access to post-partum tubal ligations was lost.

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