Help! I’m in the middle of a debate and I’m trying to show that hospital visitation is available for married spouses and I’m finding lots of places that state that it was one of the 1138 enumerated in this GAO report. But I can’t figure out which one as I’ve looked up the codes individually, but didn’t that specifically listed.
I’m not sure what you’re asking here. I don’t know of any hospital that would not allow a spouse to visit, unless the health of the patient would be at risk for having visitors. Even in ICU’s that I’ve had experience with, visitation has been restricted to “immediate family members only,” which would obviously include the spouse.
Is there something we’re missing here?
I dont wanna hijack my own thread… Here’s the deal. We’re debating the issue in Florida where a lesbian was disallowed visitation of her dying partner. One of the rifts that is supposed to be granted married people by the 1138 things from the GAO is hospital visitation.
This is the story I believe the OP is referring to. I gather from it that woman in question was not, in fact, legally married to the decedent and the hospital believed it was acting appropriately under the auspices of state law.
Still, a shitty thing for them to do, IMO, but that’s for another forum.
Further searching shows that, unfortunately, Florida law specifically does not recognize same-sex marriage.
They had a copy of the power of attorney form and violated Florida law. The administrators are bigots and just trying to cover their asses. Gee, I wonder if they insist straight people fax a copy of their marriage certificate to the hospital before being allowed to see their dying spouse? :rolleyes:
Does a power of attorney grant the agent the same rights as a spouse? I understand it gives them the legal right to make decisions on behalf of the principle, but does that extend to hospital visitation rights? I’m asking since I’m genuinely curious.
ETA: also that article states explicitly:
Yet after the patient died, the hospital had no problem with sending the bill to that same ‘spouse’ that they wouldn’t allow to visit, and asking her to pay the rest of the bill. Apparently Florida state law does allow that.
I’ve found a bunch of articles, including this wiki one, which state that one of the rights listed is “hospital visitation” .
The person I’m debating is stating that he’s not seeing that in the GAO sheet and now I’ve tried to find it without any luck either.
If the lady who died was in any way a legal parent to the children, then they should have taken precedence over her siblings.
If the legal power of Attorney covered medical decisions, then her partner should have taken precedence.
If there was no legal relationship, then the hospital should use whatever procedures that they would usually use for different sex unmarried couples.
If Ms Brown, the long-time girlfriend of Mr Jones is able to sit at his bedside, than this woman should have been given the same right, gay or not.
Please note the forum that you are posting in.
Gfactor
General Questions Moderator
As I understand the question, though, the OP is seeking a legal basis to affirm or rebut the statements you’ve made. I don’t think you’ll find too much debate on the SDMB that, at a minimum, a long-time same-sex romantic partner should be accorded the same basis as a long-time opposite-sex romantic partner.
The question is: is there a basis in regulation or law for that claim?
hmm…
I know here there most definitely would be a case because of national and European equality legislation (age, gender, sexual orientation, disability, ethnicity, race, religion etc are all protected).
My legal knowledge sucks.
Isn’t there some federal equality provision in the US which has sexual orientation as a protected class?
Wouldn’t there then be a case if they could show that same sex couples were being treated differently from unmarried hetero couples in a situation in which the sexual orientation or genders of the parties involved was irrelevant?
i.e. simply prove Ms Brown could visit her partner Mr Jones, but that Ms Smith could not visit her partner Ms Black and Mr Green could not visit his partner Mr White and you have a case.
Nope. Some states have laws that grant some protection but not Federal law.
Definitely not. That’s the whole issue, isn’t it?
There is no federal legislation that treats sexual orientation as a protected class.
From the Executive branch, Bill Clinton did sign an executive order in 1998 prohibiting such discrimination on the federal level in some circumstances, but the Bush administration has been working on and off for several years to dismantle those meager protections by refusing to enforce them.
Judicially, the US Supreme Court has recognized the rights of homosexuals to petition the government for redress of grievances (Romer v. Evans) and to commit consensual sodomy (Lawrence v. Texas) and to send dirty pictures through the mail (Roth v US) but nothing about partner benefits. Without a repeal of DOMA or a shift in the Court’s understanding of the “fundamental right to marry” established by Loving v Virginia, Turner v Safley and Zablocki v Redhail (along with the abandonment of the precedent of Baker v. Nelson) it’s unlikely that SCOTUS would recognize any such partnership rights or benefits.
The problem may be in stpauler’s seeking “hospital visitation” as a specific consequent of marriage rights. There’s a trick to the issue here, and I will have to depend on those with quick access to law references to substantiate this.
Hospitals are not, absent specific state law, required to permit visitation to anyone, though obviously they will not enforce their right to bar family members, etc., in nearly all circumstances. There is, however, one glaring exception to this: the legal next-of-kin has nearly complete rights to visit, make medical decisions if the patient is incapable of doing so, etc. In short, if the legal next-of-kin tells the hospital to get bent, the hospital’s proper response is, “To what angle, sir/ma’am?”
The general rule, subject to statutory modification, is as follows: Next-of-kin for a child, adolescent, or unmarried young adult is the custodial parent, and the mother in cases where custody is not legally defined. Next-of-kin of a married person is his/her spouse. And next-of-kin to a presently unmarried parent (divorced or widowed) is his/her adult child. I believe jurisdictions differ to the extent to which one may name someone as legal next-of-kin by durable power of attorney.
A spouse qua spouse has no legal right to visitation; a spouse as legal next of kin has riights that trump almost anything else.
It’s been my experience that even in an ICU situation if the person is going to die they let anyone in. I have seen my friends in ICU before they died and I had absolutely NO trouble getting in. However the ones that were slated to live, well I just said “I’m his brother,” and I never had to produce ID.