Sex Offenders being denied access to family in hospitals

By now we’re used to being excluded. Can’t be on Facebook…. well, they sell your private information anyhow. Can’t take your kids to Disney World… who wants to pay ten bucks for an ice cream bar shaped like a mouse anyhow? But there’s a trending exclusion that brings cruel and unusual punishment to an entirely new level. Sex offenders are being denied access to visit family in hospitals.

Over the past few months, individuals on the sex offender registry have been denied entry or removed from hospitals, unable to visit dying parents or be present for the surgeries of their own children.

As a parent (and a son), I can’t imagine what I would do if I rushed to the hospital to be by my loved one’s side in the case of an emergency and was told I could not enter. I would absolutely lose my mind and I can’t imagine anyone who loved their parents or their children half as much as I do would not do the same.

As inhumane as this scenario is, it’s exactly what has been happening. Stuart Yates was removed from his son’s hospital bedside in Wisconsin. A Missouri father was denied access to Cardinal Glennon Children’s Hospital to be with his newborn child, who was in the NICU after he was rushed to the hospital when he stopped breathing. An FAC member, just today, was turned away from Galisono Children’s Hospital in Ft. Myers…

If hospitals are allowed to get away with excluding family members of critically ill patients because of their status on a registry; there’s no more cruel and unusual punishment I can think of. This is a nationwide problem and one we should discuss at the upcoming national conventions.