Back in 2010, President Obama issued a memorandum ordering US hospitals to recognise same-sex partners as family, thus guaranteeing them the same visitation rights offered to opposite-sex spouses.
This week, however, a gay man forcibly removed from a Kansas city hospital in handcuffs after he refused to leave his partner’s bedside.
Roger Gorley and his partner Allen Mansell have been in a civil union for five years, but the Kansas city based Research Medical Center refused to recognise Gorley as family when he went to visit Allen in the hospital earlier this week.
Speaking to Fox News, Gorley claimed that when another member of Allen’s family asked him to leave, he refused and was forcibly removed by security, something he believes would never have happened if the couple were a same-sex union and married.
The Research Medical Centre have repsoned to a flood of angry comments on their Facebook page with a post saying;
We appreciate your concern and would like to assure you that Research Medical Center puts the care of our patients as our #1 priority regardless of sexual orientation. We support all the communities we serve. We have a long history of commitment to a culture of diversity. Research Medical Center was one of the first hospitals in Kansas City to offer domestic partner benefits, which have been in place since 2005, and we have had a policy specifically acknowledging domestic partners’ visitation rights in place for years.
This was an issue of disruptive and belligerent behavior by the visitor that affected patient care. The hospital’s response followed the same policies that would apply to any individual engaged in this behavior in a patient care setting and was not in any way related to the patient’s or the visitor’s sexual orientation or marital status. This visitor created a barrier for us to care for the patient. Attempts were made to deescalate the situation. Unfortunately, we had no choice but to involve security and the Kansas City MO Police Department.
We would also like to correct the misinformation about a restraining order. There was no issue of a restraining order by the hospital.
Federal officials said on Thursday afternoon they would be looking for a “speedy” resolution to the allegations of discriminatory treatment.
The story comes in the same week as a shocking photo of a homophobic attack victim in Paris went viral on social media, and closer to home a well-known club promoter was subjected to a vicious attack outside a Dublin night club on Wednesday night.
