A hospital that denied a woman from visiting her dying partner at a hospital is now at the center of a federal lawsuit.
Tara Parker-Pope details the case, which is sparking outrage. I won’t rehash the discussion, which has been quite vigorous over at her blog. Indeed, the results of the pending lawsuit can have far-ranging effects, including “the way hospitals treat all patients with non-marital relationships, including older people who choose not to marry, unmarried heterosexual couples and single people who rely on the support of close friends rather than relatives.”
Christian Sinclair says situations like these are ideal for a palliative care team, who does a thorough job in “finding out who needs the information and help build trust and open channels of communication with family, patients and medical staff.”
But these legal issues have to be resolved first before palliative care teams can play a more active role.
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I just don’t understand this. I’ve not seen hospitals that I’ve worked in, for decades now…….I’ve never seen a hospital make an issue out of the family status, for the purpose of visiting. You show up, you say you want to visit so-and-so, you visit. Patient doesn’t want visitors, outside of visiting hours, the patient’s in the ICU, there’s infection control problems, the crowd of visitors is spilling out into the hallway, a few other things, the rules otherwise get in the way. But I’ve never seen a hospital say you can’t visit ’cause you’re a gay partner. The hospitals I’ve worked in, they could care less about that.
I dunno, maybe I don’t get around. Hospitals I’ve worked at have other problems to deal with, without making new problems for themselves. Usually dealing with the crowd of visitors out in the hallway, brining in firearms, that sort of thing.
Consent on behalf of an incompetent patient may be a sticky issue, but I’ve just never seen it with visiting.
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