Kept From A Dying Partner's Bedside

What a senseless infliction of suffering on a couple already in pain. What is it going to take to put compassion before politics, prejudice, stupidity, and insane legalities? What is it going to take to change laws that are just plain wrong?

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From a May 18 New York Times article by Tara Parker Pope

KEPT FROM A DYING PARTNER'S BEDSIDE

"When a loved one is in the hospital, you naturally want to be at the bedside. But what if the staff won’t allow it?

That’s what Janice Langbehn, a social worker in Lacey, Wash., says she experienced when her partner of 18 years, Lisa Pond, collapsed with an aneurysm during a Florida vacation and was taken to a Miami trauma center. She died there, at age 39, as Ms. Langbehn tried in vain to persuade hospital officials to let her visit, along with the couple’s adopted children.

“I have this deep sense of failure for not being at Lisa’s bedside when she died,” Ms. Langbehn said. “How I get over that I don’t know, or if I ever do.”

The case, now the subject of a federal lawsuit in Florida, is being watched by gay rights groups, which say same-sex partners often report being excluded from a patient’s room because they aren’t “real” family members."