From The NY Times: Well - Kept From a Dying Partner’s Bedside:
When a loved one is in the hospital, you naturally want to be at the bedside. But what if the staff won’t allow it?I told you it was worse than stupid...
That’s what Janice Langbehn, a social worker in Lacey, Wash., says she experienced when her partner of 18 years, Lisa Pond, collapsed with an aneurysm during a Florida vacation and was taken to a Miami trauma center. She died there, at age 39, as Ms. Langbehn tried in vain to persuade hospital officials to let her visit, along with the couple’s adopted children.
[VIA: Ed at ginandtacos, who makes the following point:
If I’m in a room with Michelle Malkin and she collapses from a heart attack, I’m going to call an ambulance. If James Dobson’s wife is dying, I’m not going to seek out a bureaucratic way to keep him out of her hospital room. These actions don’t indicate friendship or kindness. It’s merely the bare minimum recognition of what separates humans from hyenas.Hyenas indeed.]
I don't know if I should say this out loud (I'm superstitious about jinxes), but this has never ever happened to Bob and me in a New Orleans Hospital. Maybe it's local? But then I've always known better than to spend any time in Florida.
ReplyDeleteB. makes a point - perhaps gays should boycott Miami, vocally and publicly. Outing should work both ways, right?
ReplyDeleteI believe this change is coming and all of the very loud and public resistance is the desperation of an aging group - clinging to a dead ideology - around what they see as yet another of their possessions that people who don't belong to their group wish to take from them.
unfortunately the hospital in miami is not alone. and everytime I hear/read of these things, my swearing increases...because it is unf***ing believable!!
ReplyDeleteoh I pray, janice and family gets a HUGE award.
why or why are humans at times such hyenas (but would a hyena act this way, I expect not....)
thanks ..
I'm trying to cut down on swearing too, but reading this article makes me colour the air quite blue.
ReplyDeleteI just don't understand.
Glenn,
ReplyDeleteI've heard some strange things about Florida...
Susan,
I read somewhere this week that the closer gay marriage gets the less relevant the religious right becomes.
Mouse,
Suing their asses off is definitely one route. Maybe they're like hyenas in that they're fighting over the bones of the carcass of their own belief system. Or something... ;-)
NMJ,
I don't know why I'm trying to rein in my foul mouthed ways. Maybe so that it has more effect when I do let loose? I've never noticed much swearing over at your place...