Gay workers at Florida hospital say lesbian visitation tragedy not anti-gay bias
”As a gay man, I have found myself having to defend the hospital a lot against an image that’s really unfair.”
Ric Cuming, chief nursing officer of Jackson Memorial, a hospital in Florida that has been a lightning rod of controversy after two vacationing lesbians were swept into a custody controversy. Janice Langbehn‘s lover, Lisa Marie Pond, suffered a brain aneurysm aboard a cruise ship on February 18, 2007. She has insisted since then that hospital staff refused to allow her the right to see her dying lover, and that a social-worker stated it was because Florida was in “an anti-gay state.” Langbehn sued the hospital but a judge dismissed her case this past September. Cuming in this Miami Herald piece is joined by other gay employees who say that it is unfair to characterize the hospital as anti-gay and that gays are now avoiding the hospital because of the case. (Miami Herald)
”We certainly are sorry for the pain and suffering she felt…. It’s a shame that the public hospital that delivers care [here] is the focus of her pain… Is Jackson homophobic? Oh, no. I’d say 30 percent of our staff is gay or lesbian. A lot of us work here because it is considered a safe space here in Miami-Dade County.”
Martha Baker, a registered nurse and president of the local SEIU union of Miami, Florida. She’s remarking on the plight of Janice Langbehn who has pushed forward with claims that she was denied visitation rights to her dying lesbian partner, Lisa Marie Pond, at Jackson Memorial Hospital, and bases that in large part because the staff made it difficult for her to prove she was related. Nurses and others associated with the hospital are now coming forward to claim that the case is not accurate — that Langbehn may have been confused at the time, and that the hospital is not anti-gay — because Langbehn’s lawsuit was recently denied by a Florida judge in September. (Miami Herald)
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