Word power

To be completely blunt about it, monshu and I got married for the privileges. It means that I won't have to pay tax on the value of the medical coverage I'm purchasing for him through my employer. Ever since he was diagnosed with prostate cancer six years ago, we've had medical power of attorney on file with all his physicians. But documents are easily misplaced or forgotten about. One of the greatest privileges of marriage is never having to say, "Look in his file" in order to justify your presence somewhere.

So I'm beginning to get stroppy about the slips on the part of the hospital staff. Normally, I don't care how people refer to our relationship. Normally, it doesn't really have any real-world repercussions. If someone accepts same-sex romantic relationships as valid, then the fine distinctions between "partner", "significant other", "spouse", etc. probably don't matter much to them. If they don't, then it will take more than a certificate from the state to change their attitude.

But one thing I absolutely do not want to have to face is the slightest hesitation about informing or consulting me in an emergency situation. HIPPA is restrictive enough that I can see medical personnel doing just that if they have any doubts about my rights. "Spouse" slashes right through those doubts. The first thing I do now when any new person entres the room is introduce myself as "Mr monshu's spouse".

So it irks me that the staff at his hospital have apparently been trained to use the term "significant other" with same-sex couples. Today for the first time in four trips I was described by one employee to another as "Mr monshu's husband"--and even then only after he'd used the word "partner" before correcting himself. It irks me so much that I woke up in the wee hours yesterday and sent a letter of complaint to the administration (including with it a link to this timely article on LGBTQ sensitivity in a hospital setting).

We may have pinpointed to source of the problem, however. When we registered him for his overnight stay two weeks ago, I noticed that I was listed as "Partner" in the section for "Other relation" and the section for "Parent/Spouse" was left blank. I reported this to the nurse and asked to have it corrected. It wasn't, as I found out this morning when I asked the receptionist as radiology to double-check. She tried to fix it, but couldn't due to a "glitch".

Turns out you have to change the patient's marital status to "married" before you can add a spouse. We were waiting on a cab when I went to the front desk and made this request. They told me it had to come from him, so I beckoned him over to say, "Yes, I'm married." As we were leaving, I told him, "They didn't ask for any ID. I could've just grabbed someone in the lobby and said to them, 'Say you're monshu and you're married to me'." Of course, that's assuming the change went through. We'll see what difference it makes in any case.