The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services issued the new hospital visitation rule Wednesday that allows patients to designate their own visitors during a hospital visit, including their same-sex partners.
The new rule, which will apply to any hospital that participates in Medicare or Medicaid, will go into effect approximately 60 days from tomorrow, when the rule is likely to be posted in the Federal Register.
“Basic human rights—such as your ability to choose your own support system in a time of need—must not be checked at the door of America’s hospitals,” said the Department of Health and Human Services secretary Kathleen Sebelius. “Today’s rules help give ‘full and equal’ rights to all of us to choose whom we want by our bedside when we are sick, and override any objection by a hospital or staffer who may disagree with us for any non-clinical reason.”
The rule change is the result of a directive that President Barack Obama gave to the Health Department in April after hearing stories of same-sex partners who were denied access to their loved ones during the critical and, in some cases, final hours of their lives.
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