Remember that oil spill two weeks ago in Arkansas? The same line burst yesterday in Missouri.
reuters.com(Reuters) - Exxon Mobil confirmed on Wednesday that an oil spill occurred Tuesday on its Pegasus crude pipeline in Ripley County, Missouri - the same line that ruptured thousands of barrels of oil into an Arkansas neighborhood at the end of March.
An Exxon spokeswoman said a resident notified the company of oil staining on the surface near the pipeline on Tuesday. The cleanup of the one-barrel leak was near completion, she said.
The pipeline was already out of service following a spill in Mayflower, Arkansas, on March 29, Exxon said.
Gay man arrested for refusing to leave sick partner's bedside
huffingtonpost.comRoger Gorley was arrested at a hospital in Kansas City, Missouri on Tuesday for resisting hospital security as they forced him from his sick partner’s bedside.
Gorley and his partner Allen have been together for five years and have a joint Power of Attorney to recognize their relationship. But when Gorley went to visit his partner at Kansas City’s Research Medical Center hospital, a member of Allen’s family asked him to leave.
When Gorley refused, security forced him off the premises in handcuffs, reportedly placing a restraining order on him so he can’t return. (The hospital denies the restraining order.)
This hospital clearly messed up on more levels than one:
Back in 2010, President Barack Obama ordered all hospitals receiving Medicare and Medicaid payments to allow patients to determine who has visitation rights and who can make medical decisions. This right, extended to gay and lesbian partners, is supposed to give designated persons the same rights as immediate family members.
Research Medical Center responded to the allegations in a Facebook post on Thursday afternoon:
This was an issue of disruptive and belligerent behavior by the visitor that affected patient care. The hospital’s response followed the same policies that would apply to any individual engaged in this behavior in a patient care setting and was not in any way related to the patient’s or the visitor’s sexual orientation or marital status.
I dare you to read this story and then tell me our relationships aren’t real. This is a textbook case of a medical establishment siding with a homophobic family rather than keeping a patient’s best interests at heart, and it’s vile.
Keeping these two in my thoughts in light of the unjust challenges ahead of them. Damn, this is not fair.
WATCH: Gay Man Arrested in Mo. for Refusing to Leave Partner's Hospital Bedside
advocate.comRobert Gorley says hospital staff at Research Medical Center in Kansas City had him arrested and issued a restraining order when he refused to leave his partner’s hospital room.
BY SUNNIVIE BRYDUM
A gay man was arrested and issued a restraining order in Kansas City, Mo., after he refused to leave his partner’s hospital bedside, according to The Raw Story. Roger Gorley told Kansas City’s Fox 4 News that even though he and his partner, Allen, have been in a civil union for five years and have legal power of attorney agreements to make medical decisions for one another, when a member of Allen’s family asked Gorley to leave, staff at Research Medical Center refused to recognize the men’s partnership, and called police to remove Gorley from the hospital in handcuffs.
“I was not recognized as being the husband,” Gorley told Fox 4 on April 11. “I wasn’t recognized as being the partner.”
Gorley contends that the nurse on duty did not look for documentation to confirm Gorley’s assertions that he had a legal right to stay with his partner.
“She didn’t even bother to look it up, to check into it,” Gorley told Fox 4.
Instead, Gorley was escorted off the premises in handcuffs, and issued a restraining order which has kept him from any contact with his partner since the incident on April 10. The hospital declined to comment on the specifics of the case, but issued a statement saying it does not discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation.
“We believe involving the family is an important part of the patient care process,” Research Medical Center said in the statement. “And the patient`s needs are always our first priority. When anyone becomes disruptive to providing the necessary patient care, we involve our security team to help calm the situation and to protect our patients and staff. If the situation continues to escalate, we have no choice but to request police assistance.”
In 2010, President Obama issued a memorandum ordering hospitals to recognize same-sex partners as family and guarantee them equal visitation rights as offered to opposite-sex spouses. Zack Ford at ThinkProgress LGBT noted that Missouri’s state laws regulating power of attorney might leave room for hospitals to deny visitation “based on religious beliefs or sincerely held moral convictions, unless the hospital…received a copy of the durable power of attorney.”
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