Obama Orders Hospital Visitation for LGBT Families. All right!

[Better Believe It]

Now this was a good positive action by President Obama which I support. Now let's hope the DADT and Defense of Marriage Act are soon repealed. BBI -

Obama Orders Hospital Visitation for LGBT Families
By: David Dayen
April 16, 2010


In a move that could begin to mollify the rift between President Obama and the gay rights community, the President announced in a memorandum new rules mandating hospital visitation rights for all families, including gay and lesbian partners. The ruling applies to everyone, but is clearly shaded toward LGBT families.

The order seeks to give health care providers the best access to patient’s medical histories from their loved ones, and to get the proper intermediaries to communicate medical decisions for those incapacitated. And it provides some basic fairness to all patients, but particularly those in the LGBT community. This would be enforced by applying it to any hospital receiving Medicare or Medicaid funding, which makes it virtually universal.

Hospital visitation is important, and this is a compassionate order. But it’s a small step in the grand scheme of things, one that the President has offered in the past in place of movement on marriage equality or repealing the Defense of Marriage Act. AmericaBlog’s Joe Subday, reacting to this order, said he’d rather the President get around to those weightier issues.

The President will probably not be able to get by along the edges, given the harm alrady done in the relationship with the LGBT community. ENDA’s prospects look decent in the House, but repealing Don’t Ask Don’t Tell seems stalled, as the military has apparently succeeded in delaying it. Unless and until there’s movement on those issues, these lesser orders will be met with a smile and a tapping of the foot, waiting for the campaign promises to be kept.

http://news.firedoglake.com/2010/04/16/obama-orders-hospital-visitation-for-lgbt-families/


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The White House

Office of the Press Secretary

For Immediate Release April 15, 2010
Presidential Memorandum - Hospital Visitation

MEMORANDUM FOR THE SECRETARY OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES

SUBJECT: Respecting the Rights of Hospital Patients to Receive Visitors and to Designate Surrogate Decision Makers for Medical Emergencies

There are few moments in our lives that call for greater compassion and companionship than when a loved one is admitted to the hospital. In these hours of need and moments of pain and anxiety, all of us would hope to have a hand to hold, a shoulder on which to lean -- a loved one to be there for us, as we would be there for them.

Yet every day, all across America, patients are denied the kindnesses and caring of a loved one at their sides -- whether in a sudden medical emergency or a prolonged hospital stay. Often, a widow or widower with no children is denied the support and comfort of a good friend. Members of religious orders are sometimes unable to choose someone other than an immediate family member to visit them and make medical decisions on their behalf. Also uniquely affected are gay and lesbian Americans who are often barred from the bedsides of the partners with whom they may have spent decades of their lives -- unable to be there for the person they love, and unable to act as a legal surrogate if their partner is incapacitated.

For all of these Americans, the failure to have their wishes respected concerning who may visit them or make medical decisions on their behalf has real onsequences. It means that doctors and nurses do not always have the best information about patients' medications and medical histories and that friends and certain family members are unable to serve as intermediaries to help communicate patients' needs. It means that a stressful and at times terrifying experience for patients is senselessly compounded by indignity and unfairness. And it means that all too often, people are made to suffer or even to pass away alone, denied the comfort of companionship in their final moments while a loved one is left worrying and pacing down the hall.

Many States have taken steps to try to put an end to these problems. North Carolina recently amended its Patients' Bill of Rights to give each patient "the right to designate visitors who shall receive the same visitation privileges as the patient's immediate family members, regardless of whether the visitors are legally related to the patient" -- a right that applies in every hospital in the State. Delaware, Nebraska, and Minnesota have adopted similar laws.

My Administration can expand on these important steps to ensure that patients can receive compassionate care and equal treatment during their hospital stays. By this memorandum, I request that you take the following steps:

1. Initiate appropriate rulemaking, pursuant to your authority under 42 U.S.C. 1395x and other relevant provisions of law, to ensure that hospitals that participate in Medicare or Medicaid respect the rights of patients to designate visitors. It should be made clear that designated visitors, including individuals designated by legally valid advance directives (such as durable powers of attorney and health care proxies), should enjoy visitation privileges that are no more restrictive than those that immediate family members enjoy. You should also provide that participating hospitals may not deny visitation privileges on the basis of race, color, national
origin, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability. The rulemaking should take into account the need for hospitals to restrict visitation in medically appropriate circumstances as well as the clinical decisions that medical professionals make about a patient's care or treatment.

2. Ensure that all hospitals participating in Medicare or Medicaid are in full compliance with regulations, codified at 42 CFR 482.13 and 42 CFR 489.102(a), promulgated to guarantee that all patients' advance directives, such as durable powers of attorney and health care proxies, are respected, and that patients' representatives otherwise have the right to make informed decisions regarding patients' care. Additionally, I request that you issue new guidelines, pursuant to your authority under 42 U.S.C. 1395cc and other relevant provisions of law, and provide technical assistance on how hospitals participating in Medicare or Medicaid can best comply with the regulations and take any additional appropriate measures to fully enforce the regulations.

3. Provide additional recommendations to me, within 180 days of the date of this memorandum, on actions the Department of Health and Human Services can take to address hospital visitation, medical decisionmaking, or other health care issues that affect LGBT patients and their families.

This memorandum is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.

You are hereby authorized and directed to publish this memorandum in the Federal Register.

BARACK OBAMA

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/presidential-memorandum-hospital-visitation