Obama’s hospital visitation memorandum received well by gays
”There may be challenges to it. But what we have seen across the country is that, no matter how people feel about same-sex marriage, people are overwhelmingly supportive of a person’s ability to have their loved ones around them at times of crisis. . . . No one wants to be alone in a hospital.”
Rhea Carey of NGLTF speaking about President Barack Obama‘s memorandum on Medicaid and Medicare funding. Hospitals that receive funding will have to allow the patient to decide who is allowed to visit them — this would include same-sex partners, friends, or other un-related persons of their choosing. Though, most hospitals have become more open to recognizing lesbian and gay couples in recent years, there is no blanket US law that says that they have to. (LA Times)
”I was so humbled that he would know Lisa’s name and know our story…. He apologized for how we were treated. For the last three years, that’s what I’ve been asking the hospital to do. Even now, three years later, they still refuse to apologize to the children and I for the fact that Lisa died alone.”
Janice Langbehn who says President Barack Obama called her on Thursday to talk about the difficulties she had in seeing her dying long-time partner, Lisa Pond, after she suffered an aneurysm while the couple was on vacation in Flordia. Hospital staff has disputed some of the details of her case, but Langbehn and Pond’s case still served to illustrate the differences between universal benefits of heterosexual marriages vs. same-sex couples who are excluded from marrying and may have many rights in their home state, but none when they travel to another state. (New York Times)
”One person in a hospital can make a huge difference — a security guard, a front desk clerk looking at a same-sex partner and saying, ‘You don’t have any right to go back there’. … So I think this directive gives weight to the importance of recognizing the variety and the breadth of how people define families.”
Dr Jason Schneider, described by NPR as the former president of the Gay and Lesbian Medical Association, commenting on President Obama‘s memorandum that would make it easier for patients to extend visitation rights to a loved one other than married partners or immediate family members. (NPR)
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