Update: Jackson Memorial Hospital Steps Up....A Little

Do you remember the story of Janice Langbehn and her partner Lisa Marie Pond? The couple had planned a family cruise, but, while in Miami Lisa Pond suffered a stroke and was taken to Jackson Memorial Hospital, where Janice, and their children, were kept from seeing her as she slipped into a coma and died.

[Previous posts on this sad story are HERE and HERE.]

Well, it finally looks like Jackson Memorial, oddly enough ranked one of “America’s Best Hospitals,” may actually have taken a giant step forward in dealing with LGBT patients, couples, and families.

Lambda Legal, its coalition partners, and officials from Jackson Health System--which runs Jackson Memorial--have announced that the hospital has improved policies that are more responsive to the needs of the LGBT community; Lambda Legal believes, however, that the new policies still do not provide as much protection as needed in critical situations, and they have urged Jackson Memorial to enact a full grievance procedure and apologize formally to the Langbehn-Pond family:

"Lambda Legal applauds Jackson Memorial's work with the coalition to review and expand policies and training materials to help address the needs of same-sex couples and their families, but we urge the hospital to finish the job. The hospital should issue an official apology to the Langbehn-Pond family and JHS should have a grievance procedure in the case of visitation denial that can be acted on quickly in an emergency situation....We don't want the Langbehn-Pond nightmare to happen to another family."

Last September, when the court rejected a Lambda Legal lawsuit against Jackson Memorial Hospital on behalf of Janice Langbehn, ruling that no law required the hospital to allow her and their three children to see her partner, Lisa Pond, Lambda Legal began working privately with other LGBT organizations and hospital officials to address the policies that leave many same-sex couples and their families vulnerable during critical times. After a year of reviewing hospital policies policies, the coalition recommended several changes that the hospital has since adopted:

• the development and implementation of a non-discrimination policy that includes sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression,
• a patient's bill of rights that demonstrates the hospital's commitment to providing quality care for LGBT patients.
• a visitation policy that updates the definition of family to include same-sex partners and other people who may not be legally related to a patient.

Hopefully this will prevent another such tragedy from happening to an LGBT family at Jackson Memorial. Whatever your thoughts on LGBT rights and discrimination, you must know that to allow a person to die, while keeping their loved ones from their side, is unconscionable.