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Loading ...Fresno hospital bars lesbian from visiting partner
06.15.2009 6:01pm EDT
(San Francisco) After a lesbian was barred from visiting her partner and giving advice about her treatment at a Fresno hospital, the American Civil Liberties Union and the National Center for Lesbian Rights sent a letter to the hospital today urging that it adopt policy changes respecting same-sex relationships.
“We just couldn’t believe this was happening to us. This was the nightmare that we hoped we’d never have to live through,” said Teresa Rowe, who grew up in Clovis, California, but now lives in the Bay Area with her partner of four years, Kristin Orbin.“Unfortunately, because Kristin suffers from epilepsy, trips to the hospital are pretty common for us, which is why we filled out the legal paper work to make sure I would be able to be with her and make
emergency decisions about her care. But the hospital wouldn’t let me see Kristen and ignored my advice about her treatment. They ended up giving her the exact medication I repeatedly asked them not to give her.”
On May 29, 2009, Rowe and Orbin attended the “Meet in the Middle” rally in support of marriage for same-sex couples in Fresno. After the couple completed a 14-mile march in 90 degree heat, Orbin collapsed in a seizure. The couple experienced hostility from the ambulance driver, but Rowe was ultimately allowed to accompany Orbin to Community Regional Medical Center in Fresno. However, when the couple got the hospital, the driver would not allow Rowe to accompany Orbin into the emergency room even though Orbin had been in and out of consciousness, and Rowe was familiar with her medical history and care.
Rowe repeatedly asked hospital employees to allow her to see Orbin and talk to a physician about her care but was refused. She volunteered to have Orbin’s legal paperwork naming Rowe as her health care agent faxed to the hospital but was told that it wouldn’t do any good.
When she asked that she at least be allowed to pass along the message that Orbin not be given the
drug Ativan, she was told the message would be conveyed. If the message was given to those treating Orbin, it was ignored because Orbin was given the drug, which she didn’t need and which causes her unnecessary pain.
Meanwhile, when she was awake, Orbin was also asking to be allowed to see Rowe. Although they were both told that no visitors were allowed in the area where Orbin was being treated, other patients were receiving guests. After being separated for several hours, Orbin finally saw her doctor. She
complained to him, and Rowe was eventually allowed to be with her.
“Until the California Supreme Court upheld Prop 8, Kristen and Teresa were planning to get married. In this climate, hospitals must be especially diligent to protect same-sex couples from discrimination,” said Elizabeth Gill, a staff attorney with the ACLU of Northern California. “As these events so painfully demonstrate, no matter what hoops same-sex couples jump through to
protect their relationships, these kinds of horrible things will continue to happen as long as couples are denied the recognition and respect that only comes with marriage.”
The letter sent by the ACLU and NCLR charges that it was a violation of state law for the hospital to discriminate against the couple based on their sexual orientation, as well as to refuse to recognize Rowe’s legal authority, which was authorized by Orbin’s advance health care directive.
The letter also notes that hospitals must post and follow a patient’s bill of rights that bars discrimination based on sexual orientation and grants patients the ability to designate visitors of their choosing and to decide who is able to make emergency decision about their care. The letter urges Community Medical Centers immediately to affirm their commitment to inclusive and sensitive medical care for LGBT patients, and to take a number of steps to carry out that commitment.
“Discrimination in healthcare settings is still far too common for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people,” said Jason Schneider, MD, President of the Gay and Lesbian Medical Association (GLMA). “No one is served when partners are barred from visitation and kept from participating in conversations about their loved one’s care. It’s bad for doctors who are kept
from potentially life threatening information, it’s bad for partners who are left waiting hopelessly in the waiting rooms and it’s especially traumatic for patients who need the love and support that only their partners can provide to help them through health care emergencies.”
The hospital has until June 22 to respond.
I recommend that we all not lose momentum in our movement for equality. Please get up and out there and be heard. Donate your time, a bit of money, a voice that is loud and clear.
The LGBT movement is on the MOVE again. It is as OUT THERE as is was in the beginning at Stonewall. ( I was there )and I am here now just as motivated I as I was then.
Our brothers and sisters are coming together and we will prevail.
I am for the March on Washington.
A great place to help and get news of the movement is the Courage campaign.
March on! peace and equality for all…
Heartless, cruel bastards! Yes, please do sue them for multi-millions! In a well-publicized and spectacular court case that will ruin their reputation before many people. That and losing millions of $$$$s is the only possible way to get their attention!
Anthony Garriger suggested: “I recommend they get a Civil Union the hospital would have vary Little wiggle room then”.
Why not simply actually get married. There are several States and countries where this is legally possible that have no residency requiremments. Screw Prop H8 and its effect on California. And screw “civil” unions. Equality NOW!
Full Faith & Credit Clause, here we come.
Sue, Sue, Sue the living crap out of them. Ambulance driver, hospital and all. Cause them as much pain as you possibly can.
“However, the couple had, and still has, the right to register a California domestic partnership. Their legal case would have been much stronger if they had done so.”
Not necessarily. Married couples don’t have to be living together to be married, that is a requirement for Domestic Partnerships, or at least proof of a common residence.
What if this lesbian couple did not have a common residence? They wouldn’t have that option in a Domestic Partnership but they would if they could marry.
See the conflict that creates between DP and marriage? It’s not equal.
I say try and sue them. It is bad enough you had a medical emergency and then have to put up with this B.S. My partner recently had a heart attack and I faced the same issues. I adamantly got in the ambulance and told the paramedics who I was and that I was going…..they did let me accompany my partner and even stay two days and nights in the hospital, but gave me a reclining chair to sleep on, which was fine. A few medical personnel were “snotty” but most were ok and one nurse was very nice and even insisted I eat etc. My partner is ok now….but I cannot imagine how bad your experience must have been. This was also in Sarasota, Florida….the state where 2/3rds of the population voted against gay marriage, go figure. The bottom line is during an emergency you should not have to be worried about gay prejudice period. This hospital administration should be ashamed of themselves.
Appalling. It is simply unthinkable, the amount of emotional pain that this kind of unthinking cruelty might cause. Imagine she had died, alone, away from her nearest and dearest? This has happened. And for what? To protect the marriages of hetrosexuals? It’s priceless the way they claim that you can defend family life by advancing the cause of cynicism and cruelty, separation and loneliness.
Its a sad day in america when a person is denied the right to see their love ones in the hospital because they are same sex partners this is the kind of ignorants that makes me sick to my stomach!!!
My guess is that the ambulance was operated by a private company. Sue them, and cite JCAHO and state law. The hospital? Do they get tax money, or not? Sue them regardless. Find out if any of the staff are contract–example, is the emergency department considered a fiscally separate operation. If so, sue them, go after them with their JCAHO certification, and go after any individuals you can.
For those who have suggested that the non-marriage now allowed to gay Californians would’ve worked, I say you’re blind in addition to wrong. It didn’t work in Connecticut and it’s not working in New Jersey. Sit your own ass at the back of the bus if you want, but don’t invite me to the Uncle Tom party, or two women who deserved to be treated in the manner established by JCAHO.
One more thought. If the woman having the seizure had any insurance, I would suggest filing complaint with the insurance company, again citing JCAHO. Was there a doctor, nurse, nurse practicioner, or any other state-licensed staff who refused to recognize state-issued legal documents? Mention it. Do anything you can to stop or reverse payment to these assholes. If you can cause problems with anybody’s licensure, do it. They understand lawsuits and payouts, so put them on their knees and make them suffer.
Lawsuits are definitely in order here, including the ambulance company. The morons in this so called medical facility need the wake up call that lots of unfavorable publicity and a large cash award can bring. And administering a drug the patient definitely should NOT have–incredible incompetence—–ia rhia doctor normally an apprentice plumber?
Typical of the days before marriage equality like in pre-marriage equality Massachusetts and that is how it was in Maryland before we got an imperfect but much more humane governor,DEM Martin O’Malley.
We have some rights here now in MD under him, most of which would have been impossible under GOP Gov “Sanctity of Marriage” Robert Ehrlich and before him. He tried to kill most every advance for our community under that moldy, rotten excuse. He did agree to sign into law for MD schools an antibullying law. It was like a breath of fresh air when he was denied a second term by O’Malley victory at the polls. Ehrlich wanted a MD constitutional amendment to ban MD equality. O’Malley will not saddle MD with that kind of ugliness. He is willing for MD civil unions where as Ehrlich wanted in my view to give MD gay people second-rate citizenship.
Of Fresno, they can get away with all kinds of antigay nonsense in the medical/legal sense because with the Prop 8, gay couples and their kids lost the respect and vital support that legal marriage confers on a couple.
Until Prop H8 is tossed on the trash heap where it belongs, any gains if possible will be small piecemeal crumb by crumb ones that can always be held up to legal challenge by the enemies of equality in CA. They can site anything as being a “violation of Prop 8″.
Downplay the effects of Prop 8? The repercussions from Prop 8 are many and harmful, from denial of human rights like what this couple went through, to neighbors and relatives alienated from each other over Prop 8. Prop 8 is divisive, hurtful and dangerous.
And as if “more salt needed to be poured into open wounds”, Gov. Schwartzeneggar pledged to uphold this travesty of justice that must be eliminated before more harm comes from it.
I regard marriage discrimination states as disrespectful, dangerous and inhospitable to a gay couple should unforseen illness, accident, injury occur. That is all the more reason to never give up until every single square inch of US soil is liberated from marriage discrimination and bias.
I suggest that a qualified progay opponent to Schwartzeneggar come forward who has had experience running preferably a large state.
I am all for suing that horrid hospital for that mean-spirited abuse the couple had to endure. They were at the mercy of that awful, cruel place.
What a nightmare! I am thankful that when I’ve had to visit hospitals here in the Seattle area the staff have been very respectful of my relationship with my partner. I don’t take that for granted. I know that may not be the case if one of us needs to visit a hospital while traveling outside our area. Yet another reason why full equality is needed at the Federal level!
I concur with the rest of the comments. Sue their asses and take them for every penny you can. This blatant discrimination needs to be stopped!
This is just disgusting! I would like to know exactly who this “ambulance driver” who was “hostile.” Just who does he think he is? His name should be published. He deserves to be held accountable in addition to the hospital!
Hit them with their Joint Commission Acrediation: “EP 11. The hospital provides care, treatment, and services free from discrimination related to age, race,ethnicity, religion, culture, language, physical or mental disability, socioeconomic status, sex, sexual
orientation, and gender identity or expression.”. I agree, sue the bastards!