Presidential Memorandum – Hospital Visitation

Rights of Hospital Patients to Receive Visitors and to Designate Surrogate Decision Makers for Medical Emergencies MEMORANDUM FOR THE SECRETARY OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES There are few moments in our lives that call for greater compassion and companionship than when a loved one is admitted to the hospital. In these hours of need and […]

Same Sex couples now have visitation rights at Medicare and Medicaid hospitals

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has just issued new rules for Medicare- and Medicaid-participating hospitals that protect patients’ right to choose their own visitors during a hospital stay, including a visitor who is a same-sex domestic partner. HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said that “Basic human rights—such as your ability to choose your […]

Transgender Patient Reports “Ridicule” at Indiana Hospital

In an 8/2/10 broadcast, FOX59 News in Indianapolis reported on the claims by a transgender patient that she was ridiculed and refused treatment by staff at Ball Memorial Hospital. Advocacy groups have filed complaints against the hospital saying that the patient,  Erin Vaught, was “…inhumanely treated, dehumanized, and disrespected.” Earlier this year The LGBT Cancer […]

Visitation Rights for LGBT Patients

Out With Cancer helped make visitation rights for all patients and their loved ones a right. We were one of several LGBT focused nonprofit organizations fighting to change hospital policies that excluded  same sex partners from the same visitation rights as married heterosexual couples.  On April 15, 2010, the President issued a Presidential memorandum to […]

Kerry Demands Gay Blood Ban Review

A June 9 letter to the chair of the HHS Advisory Committee on Blood Safety and Availability from Sen. Kerry and Rep. Mike Quigley, Democrat of Illinois, was co-signed by thirty-three representatives and nine senators. “We join with medical experts at the American Red Cross, America’s Blood Centers, AABB, and the American Medical Association, among […]

HHS Considers lifting Gay Blood Ban

This week, the Department of Health and Human Services Blood Committee will review it’s policy on banning Gay men from donating blood. Following up on a March announcement from the Department of Health and Human Services, the June meeting of the Advisory Committee on Blood Safety and Availability ”will hear presentations and engage in deliberations” […]

Senators Ask for Gay Blood Ban Review

U.S. Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., didn’t mince words Thursday in calling for the repeal of the long-standing ban on gay men donating blood. “Not a single piece of scientific evidence supports the ban,” Kerry said  in Bay Windows, a New England-based gay and lesbian newspaper. A letter to the FDA — spearheaded by Kerry and […]

Gay Blood Ban

16 senators called on the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to end the ban on blood donations by gay men. In a letter to FDA commissioner Margaret Hamburg on Thursday, the senators called the policy “medically and scientifically unsound” and called out the double standard placed on gay men who want to be donors.“Prospective donors […]

Banning All Gay Men from Donating Blood Is Unscientific and Wrong

Gay men are banned from blood and bone marrow donations in the United States and Canada.  Aside from inequity, this impacts directly on the survival of cancer patients seeking bone marrow or blood donations from matching gay relatives.  It is time to change the policy for all men who have sex with men. From an […]