Posted on 04/15/2010 9:00:23 PM PDT by LouAvul
President Obama on Thursday signed a memorandum requiring hospitals to allow gays and lesbians to have non-family visitors and to grant their partners medical power of attorney.
The president ordered the Department of Health and Human Services to prohibit discrimination in hospital visitation. The memo is scheduled to be made public Friday morning, according to an administration official and another source familiar with the White House decision.
An official said the new rule will affect any hospital that receives Medicare or Medicaid funding.
(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.msn.com ...
News to me as well. I distinctly remember a patient I worked with about 20 years ago who was dying from AIDS. His partner was as devoted as present continuously. He was as devoted as any heterosexual partner I’ve seen. He told me they had been partners 30 or 40 years. No one ever told him to stay away. Go figure. I’ve seen it repeated in hospitals I worked at as well - many times. When someone was dying (or just ill or whatever), the nurses and other staff want loved ones nearby. I have yet to see someone thrown out because they weren’t “officially” part of the family.
Let me restate that, If you please. Didn’t mean to snarky. This administration has me ready to burst!
That’s just not been my personal experience. Not just a hometown thing, this was at one of the biggest hospitals in our state.
Now thats funny :)
The rule was about keeping people who might exploit a drugged or otherwise helpless person out. It was assumed that family, married or blood, would have the best interest of the patient at heart.
Now if some stranger claims to be your gay lover then the hospital must allow them access to you up until the point that you are awake enough to say that you don't want them there. Hope you wake up before they take off with your watch and wallet.
Before you had to ask for them to be allowed in, now you must ask for them to be kept out.
I have absolutely no problem with this, and am wondering why any conservative would. Why can't someone name who they want to have visit or have medical power of attorney over them?
With this argument taken away from them, it's one huge argument the gays no longer have for gay marriage. I don't see how any conservative could object to letting people decide who will visit them or have power of attorney over them, especiually if it further weakes the already-weak arguments for gay marriage.
This is crap purely. We already do this in the hospital. It is called Significant Other and only needs to be documented upon admission. I have worked in nursing for many years. Obama is just reinventing that which is already available. He is the biggest fake you will ever know which is why he is so secretive about his history.
And to think there are folk who drool over him like he is something big that has hit the planet.
I didn’t know that. The hospital I was in did not allow anyone but family members. And don’t get me wrong here. I think this is disgusting. Not so much the visitation, but allowing someone outside the family to make life and death decisions for someone is just wrong on so many levels.
Bull to you I have been denied as a stepbrother!!!
Is Obama planning on spending time in the hospital? Maybe he just doesn’t want to be lonely!
Oops - forgive the double post. Board hiccuped on me.
Why would someone name a stranger as someone who should be allowed in to see them?
We can't just disagree with Obama because he's wrong 99.999% of the time.
Thank you. I honestly did not know that.
I’m sorry you were denied. That wasn’t right.
I wasn’t. She was live-in girlfriend. Went everywhere they took her.
Even with Medicare funding, such a rule should be made by legislation. He is a dictator.
Hospitals should counter the policy is already in effect in all maternity wards, so long as the partner and the patient are the genetic parents of the infant.
I don't think that's always true. Not long ago, where I work, a dying teenager was in the ICU. A steady stream of mostly kids were coming in all day long to see him. However, I believe only his family were with him when he died, and the friends were in the waiting room.
Thank you. That was the term they used, and whenever I referred to myself as that, I had free roam and access.
Next time look for the social worker and they can put you on the list or if patient requests only certain visitors that is a different story but has nothing to do with the homosexual issue.
Obama is full of quackery trying to find your every last dime and looking to claim every social embellishment he and his other fakers can publicize and mesmerize and there are plenty of folk that he and his regime can bend like silly putty.
The sodomite state strikes again!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.