![\"Hospital](\"http:\/\/blogs.discovermagazine.com\/80beats\/files\/2010\/04\/hospital-emergency-room-surgery.jpg\" "\\"Hospital")
Last night, President Obama issued a memo that will change hospital visitation rights around the country. The administration will draft new rules declaring that any hospital participating in the government’s Medicare and Medicaid programs\u2014which is most of them\u2014will no longer be allowed to bar visitors that patients desire to have access to them.<\/p>\n
This has been a particular hardship for gay Americans, who have been turned away from visiting sick loved ones because of policies that allow visiting rights solely to spouses or family members. They aren’t the only ones, either, Obama<\/a> argues. He cited widows or widowers without children, members of religious orders as examples of people who have been unable to choose the people they want to be at their side [Reuters<\/a>]<\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n The changes won’t take effect right away. The Department of Health and Human Services must draft the new rules, then put them in place and police them. But in addition to expanding visitation rights, the order also requires that documents granting power of attorney and healthcare proxies be honored, regardless of sexual orientation. The language could apply to unmarried heterosexual couples too [Los Angeles Times<\/em><\/a>]<\/span>. You can read Obama’s memo here<\/a>.<\/p>\n The President was particularly inspired by the case of a Florida couple, Janice Langbehn and Lisa Pond. When Pond suffered an aneurysm, Langbehn was denied visiting access at the hospital, despite the fact that she carried power-of-attorney and the couple had adopted four children. Pond died before Langbehn was allowed access. On Thursday night, Mr. Obama called her from Air Force One to say that he had been moved by her case. \u201cI was so humbled that he would know Lisa\u2019s name and know our story,\u201d Ms. Langbehn said in a telephone interview. \u201cHe apologized for how we were treated. For the last three years, that\u2019s what I\u2019ve been asking the hospital to do” [The New York Times<\/em><\/a>]<\/span>.<\/p>\n Related Content: Image: iStockphoto<\/em><\/p>\n Last night, President Obama issued a memo that will change hospital visitation rights around the country. The administration will draft new rules declaring that any hospital participating in the government’s Medicare and Medicaid programs\u2014which is most of them\u2014will no longer be allowed to bar visitors that patients desire to have access to them. This has […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":641,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-530413","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/530413","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/641"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=530413"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/530413\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=530413"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=530413"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=530413"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n80beats: Health-Care Reform Passed. So What Does It Mean?<\/a>
\n80beats: Should You Avoid Hospitals in August, When the Rookie Docs Arrive?<\/a>
\n80beats: Familial Rejection of Gay Teens Can Lead to Mental Health Problems Later<\/a>
\nDiscoblog: In Hospitals, If Your Disease Doesn’t Kill You, a Cell Phone Might<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a>
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