When Lisa Pond collapsed during a family vacation in Florida three years ago, her partner of 17 years was kept away from her hospital room.
Janice Langbehn begged and waited for hours to stand by Pond's bedside at Miami's Jackson Memorial Hospital, but it wasn't until her partner's sister arrived that she got any information. In the end, the person Pond was closest to was relegated to a waiting room as she died from an aneurysm.
"To hold Lisa's hand wasn't a gay right, it was a human right," Langbehn told CNN on Thursday.
Obama requested that the regulation [sent April 15 to the Secretary of Health and Human Services] make clear that any hospital receiving Medicare and Medicaid funding, which includes the vast majority of U.S. hospitals, must allow patients to decide who can visit them and prohibit discrimination based on a variety of characteristics, including sexual orientation and gender identity.
Read the rest of the CNN article here. You can read the President's memorandum here.
It's past time. I applaud the compassionate nature our President has shown here.
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