It is pretty hard to fathom not having the right to see your spouse as he or she is laying in a hospital bed, dying. However, that is just what happened to Janice Langbehn when she desperately tried to see her dying partner, only to be denied this basic right for eight horrific hours. She was later allowed to see her partner, but by then it was too late, and she could only say her final goodbyes as a priest performed the last rites on the 39 year old Lisa Maria Pond before dying. The hospitals reasoning for not allowing her to see Pond was a rule in their visitation policy in cases of emergency. In Florida, same-sex marriages are not recognized and the hospital's rule would only allow immediate family or spouses in this case, which excludes partners.
This horrific story happened back in 2007 and on Friday, Ms. Langbehn filed a lawsuit claiming emotional distress and negligence. Even though the hospital claims they did nothing wrong, did not cause any emotional distress, and were not negligent, I really hope this lawsuit changes a lot of things. Something like this should have never happened. I feel like the hospital had no right to deny Ms. Langbehn from seeing her partner, Ms. Pond for 8 whole hours. If they cannot understand how callous and horrible it was for them to do that, then they deserve to lose this suit. Hopefully this suit prevents something like this happening anywhere ever again, as well.
1 comment:
I found your story very sad and touching. I hope that the lawsuit does bring change to a world that people are so closed minded about.
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