This is just a follow up to my previous blog in September titled, "Why should you care about national equality rights?" I'm posting the story as written by the Ventura County Star.

Find more of the story on their website;
http://www.vcstar.com/news/2009/nov/21/though-suit-dismissed-hospital-staffers-to-not/?partner=RSS

By Steve Rothaus

McClatchy Newspapers

(MCT)

MIAMI - Several Jackson Memorial Hospital nurses in Miami personally apologized to Janice Langbehn, a Washington state lesbian who said a Jackson social worker wouldn't allow her to be with her dying partner in 2007.

"We certainly are sorry for the pain and suffering she felt," said Martha Baker, a registered nurse and president of SEIU local 1991, the union representing about 5,000 doctors, nurses and other healthcare professionals at Jackson.

"I apologize," said registered nurse Norberto Molina, chairman of the union's gay Lavender Caucus. "I can't imagine what you went through."

The apologies came at a town hall-style meeting Thursday night at Unity on the Bay church in which Langbehn returned to Miami as a speaker. Baker, Molina and two other Jackson nurses, Jim Nicholson and Diane Poirier, along with 60 other people, attended the meeting.

Langbehn, whose lawsuit against Jackson was dismissed in September by a federal court in Miami, graciously welcomed the nurses' personal gesture. But she still wants the hospital to apologize formally.

"The management has to do it," Langbehn said.

She tearfully told the audience of her final moments with longtime partner Lisa Pond, who suffered a fatal brain aneurysm on Feb. 18, 2007, shortly before they were to sail with their three children on a Caribbean cruise for gay families.

At Jackson, Langbehn said, a social worker would not let her visit Pond because Florida is "an anti-gay state." Pond, 39, died the next day.

Langbehn, with the help of Lambda Legal, sued the hospital. The case, which received publicity around the country, was dismissed without a decision whether Jackson discriminated against Langbehn because she is gay. The court determined Jackson had no legal obligation to allow anyone to visit a patient.

"It's my duty to speak out, that this should never happen to another family of ours," said Langbehn, seated next to her attorney, Beth Littrell of Lambda Legal in Atlanta, Stratton Pollitzer of Equality Florida and Miami attorney Elizabeth Schwartz, who specializes in nontraditional-family issues. C.J. Ortuno, executive director of SAVE Dade, moderated.

From the beginning, Jackson has said Langbehn was not discriminated against and defended social worker Garnett Frederick, who denied making the offensive comment.

"We have always believed and known that the staff at Jackson treats everyone equally, and that their main concern is the well-being of the patients in their care," Jackson spokeswoman Jennifer Piedra said in a news release after the case was dismissed in September.