NURSES APOLOGISE TO LESBIAN PARTNER

Nurses from a US hospital that denied a lesbian woman from seeing her dying partner have apologised to her.

Janice Langbehn’s partner Lisa Pond was taken to hospital in 2007 after suddenly collapsing from a brain aneurysm. Staff at Miami’s Jackson Memorial Hospital refused to allow Langbehn, who had a medical Power of Attorney document, or the couple’s children from seeing the dying woman for eight hours.

The family were only allowed to see Pond after she had died, thanks to the intervention of a Catholic priest at the hospital.

A subsequent lawsuit was dismissed by the courts over a technicality that states that the hospital has no obligation to provide anyone access to a patient in their trauma unit.

Despite this, several nurses from the hospital personally apologised to Langbehn for her suffering at a church meeting on Thursday, reports the Los Angeles Times.

“I apologise. I can’t imagine what you went through,” said one nurse while another told the newspaper, “We certainly are sorry for the pain and suffering she felt.”

Langbehn welcomed the apologies but said that the hospital and its management should also be making amends.

“It’s my duty to speak out, that this should never happen to another family of ours,” Langbehn said at the meeting.