Those who have been there praise Obama's mandate on gay visitation rights

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2010/04/16/ST2010041604841.html?sid=ST2010041604841

By Darryl Fears and Lena H. Sun
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, April 17, 2010

Kate Fleming was dying.

But her partner, Charlene Strong, couldn't get to her. A social worker at a Seattle hospital barred Strong from the room because she wasn't a blood relative, she said.

Strong said it took 20 minutes to locate a relative on the phone. "A minute felt like a hundred hours," she recalled. Hours after she entered, Fleming was removed from life support.

"I was horrified. I thought it was so wrong," Fleming's mother, Audrey, said Friday from her home in Alexandria. Her daughter died in December 2006 after nearly drowning.

Strong and Fleming praised President Obama's mandate to give hospital visitation rights to domestic partners. Strong and Kate Fleming were nearly inseparable for 10 years. They exchanged vows in a commitment ceremony at Audrey Fleming's house in Alexandria in July 1998. They were in their Seattle home when a flash flood trapped Kate Fleming in the basement.

Susan Gregg-Hanson, a spokeswoman for Harborview Medical Center in Seattle, said Fleming and Strong were mistaken. The hospital's policy was to treat everyone the same and allow loved ones to visit patients in trauma. Strong could enter the room, she said, but she did not have a family member's power to make life-and-death decisions for Fleming.

FULL story at link.

[Bluenorthwest]

1. I've been there. Have you?

Every piece and post I read about it contains inaccuracy and political language where hard fact belong.
Anyone who might 'be there' needs to step away from the politics and find out what this really, really means. Not what any poster here says it means, not me, not the opposite of me, not the guy in the middle, an actual expert. An attorney if at all possible. So you can be ready.

[Toasterlad]

2. Agreed. I Want to Know Exactly What This Rule Will Be, And What the Penalty For Breaking It Will Be

[Union Yes]

3. I'm battling HIV, I've been there.

I've experienced it firsthand.

President Obama is a good man. Thanks for posting this OP, OS.

Take care union bro!

Peace
UY

knr