Creating problems in order to force a "desired" solution

From Palm Beach Sun Sentinel-from toward the end of the article...

Federal health privacy laws say hospitals should not disclose details about a patient except to the nearest family member or someone with power of attorney. Hospitals legally do not have to allow visitors.

Note, hospitals legally DO NOT HAVE TO allow visitors. It doesn't say the law prevents them, so the choice is the hospital or whoever is representing the hospital. Pay attention to who is representing the hospital, and their obvious motives. In this case power of attorney documents were faxed to the hospital but were ignored. Why? The next bit, from the beginning of the article should explain...

The family vacation cruise that Janice Langbehn, her partner Lisa Marie Pond and three of their four children set out to take in February 2007 was designed to be a celebration of the lesbian couple's 18 years together.

But when Pond suffered a massive stroke onboard before the ship left port and was rushed to Jackson Memorial Hospital, administrators refused to let Langbehn into the Pond's hospital room. A social worker told them they were in an "anti-gay city and state." [emphasis added]

The social worker, who solely made the decision to bar Langbehn from Pond's room displayed opposition to what she perceived were state and city laws, and forced the situation. Here we have a created "problem" because A. Langbehn and Pond never bothered with establishing power of attorney and an activist social worker was intentionally cruel to Langbehn to force the issue further.

At a Miami news conference, Langbehn, 39, broke down when she recalled the eight hours she and her three adopted children — now ages 11, 12 and 14 — sat in a hospital waiting room with little knowledge of Pond's condition....

Pond was stricken shortly after boarding the ship Norwegian Jewel as she watched her children play basketball, Langbehn said. She and the children were told virtually nothing about Pond and not allowed to see her — even though Pond's sister arrived from Jacksonville and was sent straight to Pond's room.

Okay, if the sister was allowed in, why, then, didn't the sister inform Langbehn about Pond's condition?

Langbehn is now suing the hospital for the actions of the activist social worker that created the entire problem.

Posted by Danny Carlton at June 27, 2008 9:00 AM