Friday, April 12, 2013

Bedside Story

In this day and age, this is just sad.

A gay man was arrested at a hospital in Missouri this week when he refused to leave the bedside of his partner, and now a restraining order is preventing him from any type of visitation.

Roger Gorley told WDAF that even though he has power of attorney to handle his partner’s affairs, a family member asked him to leave when he visited Research Medical Center in Kansas City on Tuesday.

Gorley said he refused to leave his partner Allen’s bedside, and that’s when security put him in handcuffs and escorted him from the building.

“I was not recognized as being the husband, I wasn’t recognized as being the partner,” Gorley explained.

He said the nurse refused to confirm that the couple shared power of attorney and made medical decision for each other.

“She didn’t even bother to look it up, to check in to it,” the Lee’s Summit resident recalled.

It’s also a violation of the law.  In 2010, President Obama signed an order that required any facility that receives Medicare or Medicaid funding to allow visitation rights to same-sex partners of patients.  In this case it sounds like the hospital got caught in the middle of a family feud.

There is a happy ending: according to JMG, Mr. Gorley has been allowed to return to the hospital to visit his husband.

5 barks and woofs on “Bedside Story

  1. That’s nauseating and enraging. In all my years of nursing, the only time we had a visitor escorted out was when a very drunk man was causing problems on our unit. We never questioned anyone’s right to be at the bedside.

    Some people should lose their membership as human beings…

  2. When I heard this yesterday I remembered the deal about Medicare and there be no question about visitations, etc. I hope that nurse got a dressing down.

  3. I hope the nurse got fired. Being unaware of the Medicare thing is one thing…refusing to check on medical power of attorney borders on the criminal.

  4. You know this just makes me mad. If you are sick and in the hospital whomever you wish should be with you. Every person in the hospital needs someone there as an advocate. You are sick, you will heal better if someone who loves you is with you. To deny this man this small kindness, and then take him away in handcuffs is ridiculous and cruel. I am sure it had an adverse effect on his partner’s health as well. For me, deliberate cruelty is about the worst thing you can do.

  5. Whatever else you can say, you can’t assert that “Missouri loves company.” When the nurse one day lies dying, I hope her partner is a thousand miles away. A cruel wish on my part? Really? Crueler than what she did to these men?

    Stella has my medical power of attorney; we arranged it in great haste just before my December surgery. Medical power of attorney is no trivial matter to be dismissed based on the prejudices of a nurse or other medical practitioner. Someone should sue their assets.

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