TENNESEE: Hospital Denies Visitation Rights To Partner of Ill Lesbian

It's still happening.

The chief executive officer of Rolling Hills Hospital in Franklin plans to apologize to a lesbian woman who was denied visitation rights with her partner. Val Burke was not allowed to see her partner who is in the psychiatric hospital’s residential unit — a violation of new federal anti-discrimination guidelines. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in September issued the rules for equal visitation and representation rights “It was human error,” said Richard “Rick” Bangert, chief executive officer of Rolling Hills. “They made a mistake. When I learned of it, I immediately met with my staff on Monday. We immediately made the change in terms of making sure that our policy was very clear.”

Bangert says he will apologize to the women personally. Now what about the staffers that did this?