As her partner of 17 years slipped into a coma, Janice Langbehn pleaded with doctors and anyone who would listen to let her into the woman’s hospital room.
Eight anguishing hours passed before Langbehn would be allowed into Jackson Memorial Hospital’s Ryder Trauma Center. By then, she could only say her final farewell as a priest performed the last rites on 39-year-old Lisa Marie Pond.
Jackson staffers advised Langbehn that she could not see Pond earlier because the hospital’s visitation policy in cases of emergency was limited to immediate family and spouses — not partners. In Florida, same-sex marriages or partnerships are not recognized. On Friday, two years after her partner’s death, Langbehn and her attorneys were in federal court, claiming emotional distress and negligence in a suit they filed last June.
Jackson attorneys filed a motion to dismiss the case on grounds that the hospital has no obligation to allow patients’ visitors.
Jackson Memorial Hospital took this stand, in spite of the fact that Ms Langbehn had the proper legal documents in hand, which allowed her to make medical decisions for her partner.
I looked up the Mission Statement of Jackson Memorial Hospital, and this is what I found:
Mission Statement: To build the health of the community by providing a single, high standard of quality care for the resident of Miami-Dade County.
Vision Statement: Our strategic vision is to be a nationally and internationally recognized, world-class academic medical system and to be the provider of choice for quality care.
Values: Service Excellence and Quality, Commitment, Compassion, Teamwork and Communication, Respect, Confidentiality, Integrity and Stewardship, Inclusion.
Wow. That brought a tear to my eye.
But then I remembered what Jackson Memorial Hospital did to the Langbehn/Pong family, and would suggest an addendum to JMH’s “Mission & Vision” page: UNLESS YOU’RE GAY.
This is so wrong.
Another example of “seperate but equal” being anything but. How can people seriously still say that civil unions are just fine, and that gays do not need to be given the privilege of marriage?
So when are they going to start signing the drinking fountains, ‘straight’ and ‘ohter’
The gay community needs to start selling “Same Sex Marriage” for what it really means… protection of their civil rights. A civil union does not protect these rights because civil unions are state specific whereas marriage is recognized across state borders.
Sickening.