You asked for a summary of the claims raised in Flanagan v. University of Maryland Medical System and whether Connecticut hospitals have policies that treat same-sex partners as family members. We enclose a copy of the Flanagan complaint.

On February 27, 2002 Bill Flanagan filed a civil complaint in a Maryland state circuit court seeking money damages and other relief from a shock trauma center operated by the University of Maryland. In essence, he claims that the trauma center was negligent and intentionally caused him and his critically ill same-sex domestic partner emotional distress by failing to give Flanagan visitation rights accorded to immediate family members and disregarding the patient's legal designation of Flanagan as his health care agent for medical decisions.

The complaint alleges that as a result of the hospital's actions, Flanagan was unable to communicate with or comfort his partner and prevented from advising medical personnel of his partner's wishes as his end of life approached. Flanagan claims that this occurred because hospital staff (1) violated national hospital accreditation standards that define "family" as including people who play a significant role in a patient's life, including those not legally related to him and (2) knowingly disregarded the patient's health care power of attorney form that was in his hospital record.

We conducted an informal survey of same-sex partner visitation policies at six of Connecticut's acute care hospitals (Danbury, Gaylord, Hartford, St. Francis, St. Mary's, and Yale-New Haven). Dr. Alfred Herzog, vice president for medical affairs at Hartford Hospital, reports that the hospital considers same-sex partners to be family members, although in rare instances staff must defer to a different legally recognized health care agent. But Teresa Zajac, Gaylord Hospital's compliance officer, states that since Connecticut does not consider same-sex domestic partners to be members of a patient's family, they would not be given access to the patient's health information at Gaylord.

The other four hospitals did not supply information about their policies within the time constraints for responding to this request. We will forward their responses when we receive them.

SP-L: ro