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发帖数: 4174 | 1 A gay man was arrested this week at a Missouri hospital after refusing to
the leave bedside of his sick partner.
Roger Gorley went to Research Medical Center in Kansas City, Mo., on Tuesday
to visit Allen, his partner of five years. But when he got there, a member
of Allen's family asked him to leave, according to Kansas City Fox station
WDAF. When Gorley refused, hospital security allegedly handcuffed him and
forcefully removed him from the premises. Now he cannot visit Allen at all
because of a restraining order filed against him by the hospital.
“I was not recognized as being the husband, I wasn’t recognized as being
the partner,” Gorley told WDAF, adding that the nurse on duty refused to
verify their joint Power of Attorney status. “She didn’t even bother to go
look it up to check into it. He’s been at the psychiatric unit part
several times.”
A spokesperson for Research Medical Center was not immediately available to
give The Huffington Post a comment.
Click over to WDAF to read the hospital's response.
Back in 2010, President Barack Obama ordered all hospitals receiving
Medicare and Medicaid payments to allow patients to determine who has
visitation rights and who can make medical decisions. This right, extended
to gay and lesbian partners, is supposed to give designated persons the same
rights as immediate family members.
Obama said the new memorandum should "guarantee that all patients' advance
directives, such as durable powers of attorney and health care proxies, are
respected," and that designated persons should be able to "make informed
decisions regarding patients' care."
Despite this, discrimination continues.
Last July, Paul Zilber claimed he was discriminated against at Saint
Barnabas Behavioral Health Center in Toms River, N.J. Zilber went to visit
his fiance -- who was receiving mental health treatment for what appeared to
be a suicide attempt -- when he was reportedly called "inappropriate" for
kissing his partner goodbye and removed from the visitation list, he told
Care2. He later filed a complaint over the alleged harassment. | g********d
发帖数: 4174 | 2 Hospital, Daughter of Gay Man Arrested in Missouri Dispute What Really
Happened
The story of a gay man in Missouri who was arrested Tuesday after he refused
to leave his husband's hospital bedside has drawn national attention, and
parties on both sides of the incident are elaborating on what they believe
took place on Tuesday.
Here's what is not in dispute:
Roger Gorley and his husband, Allen Mansell, have been in a civil union for
five years and have legal power of attorney to make medical decisions for
one another, Gorley explained to Fox 4 News on Wednesday.
On Tuesday, Mansell was admitted to Research Medical Center in Kansas City,
Mo., for reasons related to his ongoing battle with clinical depression.
Mansell was reportedly fading in and out of consciousness. Mansell's brother
, Lee, was at the hospital and got into an argument with Gorley. The
argument escalated, and Gorley was forcibly removed from his husband's
hospital room, arrested, and charged with disorderly conduct and trespassing
.
Gorley contends that the nurse on duty refused to recognize his legal power
of attorney, which grants him the right to make medical decisions on behalf
of his husband.
"I was not recognized as the being the husband," Gorley told Fox 4 on
Wednesday. "I wasn't recognized as being the partner."
Research Medical Center has issued several statements, each claiming that
Gorley's behavior was inappropriate and interfering with his husband's care.
The hospital has rejected allegations that Gorley's arrest was motivated by
antigay bias, saying, "this was an issue of disruptive and belligerent
behavior by the visitor that affected patient care. The hospital's response
followed the same polices that would apply to any individual engaged 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."
But Gorley's adult daughter, who says she was at the hospital with her
father and Mansell, says the hospital's allegations that Gorley was
belligerent are "absolute and utter bullshit."
In a blog post published on We Are Atheism, Gorley's daughter Amber Brown,
26, details a long and tense relationship between the gay couple and Mansell
's family, who reportedly do not approve of their relationship.
"Allen made sure over the past 20 years to not involve his family in his
medical care," wrote Brown. "None of them are on his HIPAA nor are any of
them supposed to have any say over what happens to him medically. [Mansell
and Gorley] have each been granted power of attorney over each other for
medical decisions. This information is not only on file with Research
Medical Center, they are well-known at the hospital and throughout the city
as a proud gay couple. No one has ever had a problem until Tuesday 4/9/2012.
" (Emphases are Brown's.)
Brown alleges that Mansell's brother and sister arrived unexpectedly at
Mansell's home on Tuesday, with paramedics in tow, and took Mansell to
Research Medical Center against his will. Brown further notes that while
Mansell had previously visited Research Medical Center for electroshock
therapy treatments to combat his debilitating depression, the Kansas City
hospital was not Mansell's regular medical provider.
When Gorley arrived at Research Medical Center, Brown says her father
immediately raced to his husband's side, holding his hand and offering him
reassurance. Brown says Mansell's brother offered similar assurances, but
added that he would not allow Gorley to make medical decisions for his
husband.
"That ignited the fire in my father that had been swelling up inside of him,
" writes Brown. "He said, 'No you won’t! This is my husband. I know what he
wants and needs. You are never around. You need to leave.'"
That's when the nurse on staff asked Gorley to leave the room, says Brown.
Indeed, a spokesperson for the hospital's parent company, Hospital
Corporation of America, acknowledged that the nurse asked both men to leave.
"When the nurse went in to ask them to please quiet down and please stop
this and they continued, and every time they stepped out it would get
escalated, so she stepped back in and asked them to remove themselves for
the sake of the patient at the moment," Rob Dyer of HCA told Fox 4 News
Thursday. Dyer also told Fox 4 that Gorley did not present a copy of his
power of attorney agreement during Tuesday's particular visit.
When Gorley refused to leave his husband's side, hospital staff called
security, who eventually contacted Kansas City Police. When police ordered
Gorley to leave the room, Gorley refused, and that's when police exerted
excessive force to physically remove Gorley, who was clinging to the sidebar
of his husband's gurney, says his daughter.
"The office[r] began karate chopping his wrist to get him to release the
gurney," writes Brown. "Then they wrestled him to the ground forcefully
enough to knock his glasses off of his face, his hearing aids out of his
ears, and nearly break his wrist while they took him down. To handcuff him
they pushed a knee into his back and wrenched his wrists around."
Brown contends that the arresting officers used four different sets of
handcuffs to restrain Gorley, and alleges that one officer assumed that
Gorley had HIV because he is a gay man.
"When [the officers] drew blood from accosting him in such a brutal manner
they freaked out," writes Brown. "One of the arresting officers was so
offended by my father’s presence that he would not touch him with his bare
hands. He wore gloves the entire time, and to make matters even more
humiliating he didn’t want his handcuffs back. He grabbed them with gloves
on, then another layer of gloves pinched between his index finger and thumb
as he handed them off to another officer. The officer taking the handcuffs
looked at him like he was crazy and just grabbed the handcuffs with no issue
."
Brown says it took three hours for police to process her father and for her
to bail him out of jail. Gorley was issued a $600 fine for disorderly
conduct and trespassing, and Brown says the hospital issued a restraining
order against Gorley.
But Research Medical Center claims it never issued a restraining order
against Gorley, and said he is free to visit his partner at his leisure.
Kansas City's Fox 4 News obtained a police report detailing Gorley's arrest,
but could not find a record of a restraining order against the man.
On Thursday evening, Brown posted an update to her blog saying that the
hospital's statements claiming they had not issued a restraining order was
news to her father, and that in light of the new information, Gorley would
attempt to visit his partner that evening. John Avarosis at AmericaBlog
confirms that Gorley was able to visit Mansell Thursday night, but only
after Gorley "showed up and threw a fit." | g********d
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