Obama orders hospital visitation rights for homosexuals (rating, party, laws)

[Wayland Woman]

Originally Posted by Katiana

??? In reality, most hospitals let just about anyone visit now, even in the ICUs.

I've heard a lot of horror stories in the disability communities where people have been denied access to their significant other in a hospital based on sexual orientation or because the patient and S.O. weren't legally married. It often depends on who has the patient's power of attorney and if that person tells the hospital to keep so-and-so out.

Obama's order is a very humane and compassion gesture and long over due.

[KevK]

Good for Obama! He needs to do more on the gay rights front and this is a late but good start.

[SunnyKayak]

[quote=Wayland Woman;13760676]I've heard a lot of horror stories in the disability communities where people have been denied access to their significant other in a hospital based on sexual orientation or because the patient and S.O. weren't legally married. It often depends on who has the patient's power of attorney and if that person tells the hospital to keep so-and-so out.

Obama's order is a very humane and compassion gesture and long over due.[/quo

This is what change looks like

[KevK]

Originally Posted by wehotex

she wouldn't even lift a finger for her <mod edit, offensive> baby that she carries around for publicity.

She pimps that baby for every nickle doesn't she?

[UntamedOhioan]

I don't even know why this was ever a rule in the first place. I've been turned down when it came to visiting friends in the hospital, as well. I can understand if they are doing some kind of procedure, but if nothing's happening and the other person consents to the visit, why the hell not? I mean, how many people have random people off the street visit their hospital rooms if that is a concern?

Either way, although I usually don't agree with him much, the President has done an extraordinary and humane thing. I'll bet some heatless monsters will find some way to make this out to be a bad thing, but luckily they are getting less & less significant each passing day.

[LauraC]

Originally Posted by tigerlily

President Obama has asked the Department of Health and Human Services to establish a rule that would prevent hospitals from denying visitation privileges to gay and lesbian partners.

Yikes. Do hospitals do this now? Why? I can't imagine a hospital asking for your sexual orientation as a condition of visitation. I thought everyone can get in except for children, in most cases. The only restriction I know besides that one has to do with number of visitors at a time. Under what circumstance would a hospital deny visitation to gays? How would they know?

[LauraC]

Originally Posted by Wayland Woman

I've heard a lot of horror stories in the disability communities where people have been denied access to their significant other in a hospital based on sexual orientation or because the patient and S.O. weren't legally married. It often depends on who has the patient's power of attorney and if that person tells the hospital to keep so-and-so out.

Obama's order is a very humane and compassion gesture and long over due.

What hospitals only let married people visit? I've never heard of such a thing.

[SunnyKayak]

Originally Posted by LauraC

Yikes. Do hospitals do this now? Why? I can't imagine a hospital asking for your sexual orientation as a condition of visitation. I thought everyone can get in except for children, in most cases. The only restriction I know besides that one has to do with number of visitors at a time. Under what circumstance would a hospital deny visitation to gays? How would they know?

Its true many hospitals only allow family members and since we are still
backwards on allowing gay marriage base on some reliogous issue.
Domestic partners cant see there partner there is even cases where
a partner is denied to recieve other partner pension
such as this

Freeheld

Detective Lieutenant Laurel Hester has terminal lung cancer.
She is told her State pension cannot be transferred
to her domestic partner

[WilliamSmyth]

Originally Posted by grmasterb

This is a BS issue. First, I've never heard of a gay partner being denied visitation against the wishes of a conscious, aware patient. Now, if the issue is other family members keeping out the gay partner of an unconscious patient, then gays everywhere simply need to complete the legal documents to appoint their partners as medical power-of-attorneys. Problem solved. They should be doing it anyway, truthfully, as it's a good idea to have a medical POA.

Daily Kos: Tonight we said goodbye to a photograph (UPDATED)

In the parking lot, Bob, his partner of 26 years, said goodbye to a photograph. It was a photograph of he and Kenneth on vacation celebrating their honeymoon 6 years ago after having been “married” in a ceremony that meant nothing more than symbolism to a society that was, at turns, benevolent about the whims of a few gay folk, yet smirking about his love for another person of the same sex. “Have your fake ceremonies, for what they are worth, but don’t get obnoxious and ask for anything actually bordering on legal or realistic.” society told them. But Kenneth & Bob took it, because validating it to one another was really what counted. But tonight, it ended up needing to mean so much more.
Bob carried that photograph in his wallet as a reminder of his relationship and what it meant to him. Tonight, he said goodbye to a smiling face in a picture because he had no legal right to be present to say goodbye to his loved one in person. So Bob sat in the parking lot in the passenger seat of my car and wondered the fate of the man he had given his love and life to. He held the only thing at that moment Kenneth’s family could not take away from him – that photograph.
The hospital, at the behest of Kenneth’s family, had banned Bob from Kenneth’s room, or seeing him in the hospital at all. 26 years treated as though they were mere passing acquaintances or work colleagues. Simply because Kenneth’s family could never accept their son’s orientation (NOT “lifestyle” as some refer to it).
Tonight, a nurse sympathetic to Bob’s situation and in violation of the hospital policies, came to the car window and delivered the news to Bob that Kenneth was gone. And Bob said his goodbyes and wishes of love and peace to a picture. A ****ing photograph. Held to his chest as though he were holding his loved one in tears. Because that was all he had.
...............
Some people have mentioned legal papers as a form of protection from this sort of thing. Yes, I agree wholeheartedly, as did Bob and Kenneth because they had them drawn up. But what happened last night revealed a ***** in the armour regarding that form of “protection”. Bob did not have access to those papers, because he was with me and not at home. Long story, but Kenneth spent each Sunday afternoon with his family, but Bob was not welcome there, so he would spend it with my partner and myself. Kenneth tried, right or wrong, to straddle two divergent worlds – the one of his family and the futile need for their acceptance, and the one he created for himself with his husband and his friends. Kenneth’s sister was the one who called Bob to let Bob know that Kenneth was in the hospital, and for that we are grateful. There was no time, nor presence of mind under the circumstances, to race across Phoenix (a sprawling place for those who know) to get a piece of paper to wave in front of some administrator so Bob could be afforded his legal rights. It would have been too late anyway. It isn’t the hospital’s fault either. They are not there to referee family issues, simply to offer care. I am not angry with them, and I am certain Bob isn’t either.

[SLCPUNK]

With no fanfare, the White House on Thursday night released a statement by Obama instructing the Health and Human Services Department to draft rules requiring federally subsidized hospitals to grant all patients the right to designate people who can visit and consult with them at crucial moments.
The designated visitors should have the same rights that immediate family members now enjoy, Obama's instructions said. It said Medicare-Medicaid hospitals, which include most of the nation's facilities, may not deny visitation and consultation privileges on the basis of race, color, national origin, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or disability.

The Human Rights Campaign, which backs gay rights, said Obama's hospital decision was inspired in part by a New York Times article about a lesbian couple in Miami. They were kept apart while one lay dying in a hospital despite having an "advanced health care directive" asking for full visitation rights for each other.

Obama: gay partners should have hospital access - Yahoo! News (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100416/ap_on_bi_ge/us_obama_hospital_patients - broken link)