Bad news on hospital rights
Today we got terribly disappointing news from Lambda Legal: a FL court has dismissed the potentially ground-breaking case which we hoped would have created a legal basis for the widespread assumption that hospital patients have a right to visitation.
The court ruled that the hospital has neither an obligation to allow their patients’ visitors nor any obligation whatsoever to provide their patients’ families, healthcare surrogates, or visitors with access to patients in their trauma unit.
This is not a gay issue, nor a same-sex marriage issue, nor even an unmarried issue. Everyone who is concerned about patients’ rights should be outraged, and this court ruling should spark a statewide movement in FL at the very least, if not an addendum to national health reform legislation. We’ll be strategizing about what AtMP can or should do… suggestions welcome!
October 13th, 2009 at 7:39 pm
What terrible news! Between this and the New York State laws, it’s just amazing how much control hospitals can take away from people and their families, particularly at critical moments.