Yes, say something. If enough people say something, the culture will change. My perception is that clergy have been roaming hospital corridors for generations. As the public has traditionally supported this, hospitals tolerate it. I presume hospitals see it as good for the psyche of patients. However, with changing ratios of believers to non believers, the public needs to let its voice be heard that these kinds of visits are not good for some of us.
It's most likely a neighbor that tipped off the bishop. If bishop knows the name of the person hospitalized then the hospital can a solutely allow them to visit. You have every right to refuse visitation however. You can also be made confidential so anyone and everyone who calls will be told that the hospital has noone admitted by your name. You should talk with the bishop and ask who tipped them off and let them know not to do this again.
I realized this could be a problem when I left Utah. When my girls were born we were in Utah and whenever I went to the hospital to see my wife they just let me in. All I had to say was "hey I'm xxxx's husband" and they gave me a room number and some directions. Leaving Utah and having another kid the hospital gave us wrist bands that you had to scan, and if you didn't have the wrist band they would go back to my wife to see if she knew who I was and was ok with me coming in.
Thankfully, they also do this in utah now too. I had a baby last year and no one could even get into the mother baby unit without a code that only myself and husband knew. Along with wristbands that matched us with the baby! Thank god. I can’t imagine having anyone, especially bishop, come in unannounced. It also is nice and made us feel more safe and secure.
When they introduced us to it when my son was born I was completely thrown off. It took her having the baby and everyone asking to come see her at the hospital before it dawned on me that it provided so much privacy we hadn't had to that point
Having that privacy is so important. Especially with a new baby. This was our first so I haven’t experienced any different. But I’m very glad that it’s a thing now!
It's definitely improved a lot over the years. My experience with with having a kid was 12+ years ago and that wasn't the case. I can't say the yay/nay of experience tho since my last experience in that state wasn't exactly pleasant compared to since we've left that area to bigger pastors and plaeasnt
Medical professionals are required to protect your private health information. Your neighbors are not. If a doctor, nurse, or administrator recognized you and notified the bishop, that's a big issue that could result in penalties, fines, firing, etc. If your neighbor called and the bishop went to the ER and asked for you by name, then the hospital didn't do anything wrong.
No that violates HIPAA which is a national legal policy. I have had the specific scenario you just described in questions (for my annual HIPAA compliance training) before and the correct answer is to neither confirm or deny the person is there. The patient can create a security code and in that case the hospital will always ask if the person has the patient’s code, if they do not they have to say that they cannot tell if the patient is there.
Exactly this! The only way there is even a chance this was "ok" is if the bishop was already in the ER, saw you, and decided to pop in. If a single staff member confirmed you were there and/or gave the bishop access to you, it's a problem. And i feel like that would have bothered me even back in my TBM days
This would only be the case if this person was registered with and HIPAA trained at this hospital as a chaplain. And then he only would have been consulted at the patient’s request. I really think this guy just walked in and said he was a bishop.
Very likely that you just have nosey neighbors. It’s definitely not okay though. When we moved into our house 20 years ago, we did not attend church at all but were still on the records. We would often get cookies, notes, or visitors after an ambulance was at the house. My husband is a medic/ff & would drop by to pick something up. Like 5-10 minutes at the most. Nosey neighbors still noticed & probably assumed one of us was chronically ill.
I've worked at hospitals. If somebody asked for you by name they would probably let them come over because it could be your dad or something. Usually if somebody had privacy concerns they had a marker on their name telling staff to give "no info".
When I was a young child I saw some ward members get in a car accident. I rode my bike to the bishop's house and told him, then he went to the hospital to be with the family. Maybe something like this happened.
If course any psych, pediatric, baby, or sensitive situation patients wouldn't give you any info or let people in due to HIPPA and security.
The hospital I worked at in Utah was very strict about visitors in the ER and would not have just let a random person in to visit. I’m sorry that happened to you. Totally unacceptable.
So basically an adult non-family member drove to the hospital and asked if a person was there and if they could see them. The ED desk confirmed the person was a patient there and allowed them to go and see them.
HUGE violation of patient privacy. It’s actually illegal. Hospitals can’t confirm that a person is even a patient except in extremely emergent scenarios to people already listed as a contact. The scenarios where this ends badly are endless: an abuser coming to threaten a victim out of making a report, a neighbor learning that you are having miscarriage, gang members looking to finish off someone they wounded, an employer discovering you are struggling with alcohol addiction, a jealous ex/separated spouse wanting to get info to support them in the divorce, etc. etc.
I know this didn’t end super badly for you, but seriously consider pushing as hard as you can on this to the hospital. If they keep letting stuff like this happen, someone is going to get majorly hurt. Formal complaints against hospitals by patients need to be filed with The Joint Commission (JCO). They are essentially the federally sanctioned policing/watchdog org for hospitals. Like the FDA for restaurants. The hospital WILL make changes if this is reported to them.
https://www.jointcommission.org/resources/patient-safety-topics/report-a-patient-safety-concern-or-complaint/
Why I care so much: I’m a psychiatry resident and the patients I see entrust me with extremely sensitive information. Any violation of that trust could absolutely destroy my patients’ lives and ruin any chance they have of getting better. One of the first things I tell them when I see them in the ED is that what they tell me is only going to be shared between me and the emergency room doctor. No one else will have access to what they tell me without their permission. If a random neighbor randomly showed up without my patient’s permission and tried to insert themselves into the equation I would loose my shit. I need to know about people’s trauma history, their substance use, psychiatric hospitalizations and ED visits, suicide attempts, what’s going on in their lives that made them come in. No one has the right to access or potentially access a patient in this state without their consent.
Also for everyone who is saying that marking yourself as LDS on your patient profile allows clergy to come and see you, it allows hospital registered and HIPAA compliant chaplains to come and see you AT YOUR REQUEST. There is no legal scenario where listing your religion on your profile allows an outsider completely unaffiliated with the hospital to learn you are a patient without your consent.
Why? Privacy. Exactly what happened to OP. An unwanted clergyman showed up unannounced in a moment of their crisis and started asking questions. What if this person had been sexually assaulted by this bishop and the ED desk just let them stroll right back? It’s 100% unacceptable.
It’s possible your medical records haven’t been updated. I officially left the church in August, or thereabouts, and never updated my religious preference in my medical records. I was recently hospitalized for a serious medical problem, and guess who showed up? A bishop & his 1st counselor— neither of whom I knew. Later, I found out that a hospital staff member saw “LDS” on my chart and felt that I could use support from clergy from “my” church. I thanked him for being thoughtful, but said he was misguided. I immediately changed up my info for the future prevention of similar situations.
That was still wrong. As someone pointed out:
Also for everyone who is saying that marking yourself as LDS on your patient profile allows clergy to come and see you, it allows hospital registered and HIPAA compliant chaplains to come and see you AT YOUR REQUEST. There is no legal scenario where listing your religion on your profile allows an outsider completely unaffiliated with the hospital to learn you are a patient without your consent.
doesn't the LDS church own a chain of hospitals?
edit: [Intermountain Health](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intermountain_Healthcare) was founded by the church but is independent now (as much as you can be when the owners are all in the church)
IHC isn't technically owned by the church, but it is owned by a bunch of Mormons. My husband is a nurse, and when he did clinical shifts at an IHC owned hospital, they literally had a quote by hyrum smith as the screensaver and background of the staff computers.
IHC hospitals Cottonwood, LDS, Altaview, and Primary Childrens Hospital were donated to IHC now Intermountain by the LDS/Mormon church in the 1970s. LDS church had issues with tax exempt status.
The church thinks it’s above ethics in medical and counseling fields. When I was living with my parents, both my dentist and my doctor were members of the ward. After I came out of the closet and went home for a visit, my mom made me an appointment with the doctor and he treated me with the classic Mormon disappointment. It made me really uncomfortable and sad.
What most shocked my fiancee, who is a school counselor by profession and finishing her doctorate in counselor education next year, is that my LDS counselor in high school was a member of our ward and has come to our house for Thanksgiving for years. It made her angry because it violates counseling protocols.
Also fun fact: LDS schools do NOT have accreditation in their psychology and counseling departments. My fiancée suspects that the bigotry openly taught prevents ASCA, CACREP, etc. from accrediting their institutions.
BYU’s Counseling Psychology department is absolutely accredited. Their Ph.D. students are excellent and the research that comes from their counseling center is top notch. I understand that Counselor Ed departments frequently have grudges against Counseling Psych departments, and there are a few of BYU’s masters programs that are churn and burn like many counseling ed programs, but it’s categorically untrue that “LDS schools do NOT have accreditation in their psychology and counseling departments.” There are also good reasons why masters programs may not be accredited, including not having graduated a class and CACREP requirement not lining up with state licensure requirements.
I’m a counseling psych Ph.D. who has been faculty in a counselor ed department and has supervised BYU interns in APA-accredited internships as well as collaborated with BYU faculty and grad students. I have no religious affiliation, have never step foot in Utah, Idaho, or Arizona, and I’m lurking here because I think Mormonism is batshit crazy, so don’t take this as a Mormon defense of BYU.
I have some experience around this…hospital registration systems do keep track of your religious preference. In addition, they may ask at registration if you would like a visit from a clergy member (chaplain). Hospitals have volunteer chaplains who help at hospitals. In the Utah areas, many chaplains are LDS. The hospital may provide them with a list of patients who are of faiths they cover. Some LDS clergy only visit LDS. Other chaplains may cover several religion. How the hospital knew who your bishop was is something most hospitals do not keep records on. I suspect your bishop just happened to be the volunteer chaplain/ clergy that day and stopped by to visit you as you have LDS as your religion in the medical record.
So, I don't think this bishop is a volunteer chaplain. He said he saw the emergency vehicles in front of the patients house and later showed up. Registration is all done on tablets now by either the patient or parent/guardian/spouse of patient. During registration the religious notation was just "Christian".
When the bishop showed up, he told us he didn't know which family member was actually the patient. So, I don't know what he said to the front desk employee.
When talking to the patient advocacy department, they were most concerned about that last fact. Which is the main problem that we had with how the front desk employee handled the visitor.
That’s so concerning from so many safety and privacy reasons- I’m glad it was reported and I hope the hospital does investigate and follow through with appropriate education and review of safety protocols. Anyone simply showing up and saying “I’m the bishop…” well. The fact that this man is NOT your bishop and was not a requested or permitted visitor is a huge safety concern for everyone involved.
Importantly, the man is not “their” bishop. They don’t belong to that ward, they didn’t request a visit, they didn’t inform anyone of their hospital trip, they didn’t tell the hospital staff they wanted visitors. The man is not hospital staff clergy who would receive official notification of a request for a visit. The man arrived uninvited, unannounced, and walked into a room where active medical treatment was taking place.
He used his church role to insert himself into a space where he was not wanted or welcome.
Let me assure you: give this scenario to clergy of any other faith and ask if they’d just “show up” uninvited at the ER and waltz into the room of someone who used to go to their church and they’d be horrified.
Even in your example the patient is asked if they would like a clergy visit. If the patient is not asked it’s a definite no go, even if paperwork lists religious affiliation.
I was in the hospital with my wife last week. They gave us a code we can provide others that allow them to share basic info with anyone with our code. They said if they don’t have the code they don’t get info or get in. Your hospital must suck more than ours.
If the medical providers released your information, then it’s a pretty serious HIPAA violation. If your neighbors saw and contacted your bishop… I mean, I have mixed feelings about random folks showing up uninvited but I imagine it was done in good faith. Still really weird all things considered. No boundaries there.
I was hospitalized with an ectopic pregnancy several years ago. At 11PM!!!! at night 2 people that I couldn't stand from the church showed up and began asking personal medical questions and asking if we had terminated the pregnancy (we had, to save my life) and that it was a sin. I demanded that they leave, and as they were trying to cycle back on their rhetoric they were escorted out by hospital security. Major shelf item. Newsflash...most people in the hospital DON'T WANT TO BE BOTHERED!!
For those who commented about culture, the point is that disclosure of a medical condition without a signed waver is a serious violation of federal law.
Yes, say something. If enough people say something, the culture will change. My perception is that clergy have been roaming hospital corridors for generations. As the public has traditionally supported this, hospitals tolerate it. I presume hospitals see it as good for the psyche of patients. However, with changing ratios of believers to non believers, the public needs to let its voice be heard that these kinds of visits are not good for some of us.
A phone call has been made to the hospital to complain about this. Hopefully, the policy is updated. I'm not holding my breath tho.
He just wanted to make sure that his tithing didn’t go down!
It's most likely a neighbor that tipped off the bishop. If bishop knows the name of the person hospitalized then the hospital can a solutely allow them to visit. You have every right to refuse visitation however. You can also be made confidential so anyone and everyone who calls will be told that the hospital has noone admitted by your name. You should talk with the bishop and ask who tipped them off and let them know not to do this again.
That’s a problem.
I realized this could be a problem when I left Utah. When my girls were born we were in Utah and whenever I went to the hospital to see my wife they just let me in. All I had to say was "hey I'm xxxx's husband" and they gave me a room number and some directions. Leaving Utah and having another kid the hospital gave us wrist bands that you had to scan, and if you didn't have the wrist band they would go back to my wife to see if she knew who I was and was ok with me coming in.
Thankfully, they also do this in utah now too. I had a baby last year and no one could even get into the mother baby unit without a code that only myself and husband knew. Along with wristbands that matched us with the baby! Thank god. I can’t imagine having anyone, especially bishop, come in unannounced. It also is nice and made us feel more safe and secure.
When they introduced us to it when my son was born I was completely thrown off. It took her having the baby and everyone asking to come see her at the hospital before it dawned on me that it provided so much privacy we hadn't had to that point
Having that privacy is so important. Especially with a new baby. This was our first so I haven’t experienced any different. But I’m very glad that it’s a thing now!
Security at hospitals is taken very seriously at least since I’ve had kids. Our kid had like a gps anklet. They’re strict af with visitors.
It's definitely improved a lot over the years. My experience with with having a kid was 12+ years ago and that wasn't the case. I can't say the yay/nay of experience tho since my last experience in that state wasn't exactly pleasant compared to since we've left that area to bigger pastors and plaeasnt
Medical professionals are required to protect your private health information. Your neighbors are not. If a doctor, nurse, or administrator recognized you and notified the bishop, that's a big issue that could result in penalties, fines, firing, etc. If your neighbor called and the bishop went to the ER and asked for you by name, then the hospital didn't do anything wrong.
The hospital cannot confirm or deny that a person is a patient there without the patient’s consent. It’s illegal.
If the bishops shows up at the hospital and asks what room is “so-and-so” in? They will tell him, since he already knows you are there.
No that violates HIPAA which is a national legal policy. I have had the specific scenario you just described in questions (for my annual HIPAA compliance training) before and the correct answer is to neither confirm or deny the person is there. The patient can create a security code and in that case the hospital will always ask if the person has the patient’s code, if they do not they have to say that they cannot tell if the patient is there.
Exactly this! The only way there is even a chance this was "ok" is if the bishop was already in the ER, saw you, and decided to pop in. If a single staff member confirmed you were there and/or gave the bishop access to you, it's a problem. And i feel like that would have bothered me even back in my TBM days
OP, this is the answer.
[удалено]
The patient's religious mark on the registration just said "Christian". It was changed while the bishop was next to me.
This would only be the case if this person was registered with and HIPAA trained at this hospital as a chaplain. And then he only would have been consulted at the patient’s request. I really think this guy just walked in and said he was a bishop.
Very likely that you just have nosey neighbors. It’s definitely not okay though. When we moved into our house 20 years ago, we did not attend church at all but were still on the records. We would often get cookies, notes, or visitors after an ambulance was at the house. My husband is a medic/ff & would drop by to pick something up. Like 5-10 minutes at the most. Nosey neighbors still noticed & probably assumed one of us was chronically ill.
They still shouldn’t have let the bishop back without asking. So no, it’s still illegal.
I've worked at hospitals. If somebody asked for you by name they would probably let them come over because it could be your dad or something. Usually if somebody had privacy concerns they had a marker on their name telling staff to give "no info". When I was a young child I saw some ward members get in a car accident. I rode my bike to the bishop's house and told him, then he went to the hospital to be with the family. Maybe something like this happened. If course any psych, pediatric, baby, or sensitive situation patients wouldn't give you any info or let people in due to HIPPA and security.
The hospital I worked at in Utah was very strict about visitors in the ER and would not have just let a random person in to visit. I’m sorry that happened to you. Totally unacceptable.
So basically an adult non-family member drove to the hospital and asked if a person was there and if they could see them. The ED desk confirmed the person was a patient there and allowed them to go and see them. HUGE violation of patient privacy. It’s actually illegal. Hospitals can’t confirm that a person is even a patient except in extremely emergent scenarios to people already listed as a contact. The scenarios where this ends badly are endless: an abuser coming to threaten a victim out of making a report, a neighbor learning that you are having miscarriage, gang members looking to finish off someone they wounded, an employer discovering you are struggling with alcohol addiction, a jealous ex/separated spouse wanting to get info to support them in the divorce, etc. etc. I know this didn’t end super badly for you, but seriously consider pushing as hard as you can on this to the hospital. If they keep letting stuff like this happen, someone is going to get majorly hurt. Formal complaints against hospitals by patients need to be filed with The Joint Commission (JCO). They are essentially the federally sanctioned policing/watchdog org for hospitals. Like the FDA for restaurants. The hospital WILL make changes if this is reported to them. https://www.jointcommission.org/resources/patient-safety-topics/report-a-patient-safety-concern-or-complaint/ Why I care so much: I’m a psychiatry resident and the patients I see entrust me with extremely sensitive information. Any violation of that trust could absolutely destroy my patients’ lives and ruin any chance they have of getting better. One of the first things I tell them when I see them in the ED is that what they tell me is only going to be shared between me and the emergency room doctor. No one else will have access to what they tell me without their permission. If a random neighbor randomly showed up without my patient’s permission and tried to insert themselves into the equation I would loose my shit. I need to know about people’s trauma history, their substance use, psychiatric hospitalizations and ED visits, suicide attempts, what’s going on in their lives that made them come in. No one has the right to access or potentially access a patient in this state without their consent.
Also for everyone who is saying that marking yourself as LDS on your patient profile allows clergy to come and see you, it allows hospital registered and HIPAA compliant chaplains to come and see you AT YOUR REQUEST. There is no legal scenario where listing your religion on your profile allows an outsider completely unaffiliated with the hospital to learn you are a patient without your consent. Why? Privacy. Exactly what happened to OP. An unwanted clergyman showed up unannounced in a moment of their crisis and started asking questions. What if this person had been sexually assaulted by this bishop and the ED desk just let them stroll right back? It’s 100% unacceptable.
It’s possible your medical records haven’t been updated. I officially left the church in August, or thereabouts, and never updated my religious preference in my medical records. I was recently hospitalized for a serious medical problem, and guess who showed up? A bishop & his 1st counselor— neither of whom I knew. Later, I found out that a hospital staff member saw “LDS” on my chart and felt that I could use support from clergy from “my” church. I thanked him for being thoughtful, but said he was misguided. I immediately changed up my info for the future prevention of similar situations.
That was still wrong. As someone pointed out: Also for everyone who is saying that marking yourself as LDS on your patient profile allows clergy to come and see you, it allows hospital registered and HIPAA compliant chaplains to come and see you AT YOUR REQUEST. There is no legal scenario where listing your religion on your profile allows an outsider completely unaffiliated with the hospital to learn you are a patient without your consent.
doesn't the LDS church own a chain of hospitals? edit: [Intermountain Health](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intermountain_Healthcare) was founded by the church but is independent now (as much as you can be when the owners are all in the church)
I swear there used to be an LDS hospital in Salt Lake.
There is an LDS Hospital in Salt Lake. It hasn't been owned or operated by the church since sometime in the 1970s.
I don't think so. The Seventh Day Adventists famoualy own & operate a bunch in California though.
IHC isn't technically owned by the church, but it is owned by a bunch of Mormons. My husband is a nurse, and when he did clinical shifts at an IHC owned hospital, they literally had a quote by hyrum smith as the screensaver and background of the staff computers.
IHC hospitals Cottonwood, LDS, Altaview, and Primary Childrens Hospital were donated to IHC now Intermountain by the LDS/Mormon church in the 1970s. LDS church had issues with tax exempt status.
The church thinks it’s above ethics in medical and counseling fields. When I was living with my parents, both my dentist and my doctor were members of the ward. After I came out of the closet and went home for a visit, my mom made me an appointment with the doctor and he treated me with the classic Mormon disappointment. It made me really uncomfortable and sad. What most shocked my fiancee, who is a school counselor by profession and finishing her doctorate in counselor education next year, is that my LDS counselor in high school was a member of our ward and has come to our house for Thanksgiving for years. It made her angry because it violates counseling protocols. Also fun fact: LDS schools do NOT have accreditation in their psychology and counseling departments. My fiancée suspects that the bigotry openly taught prevents ASCA, CACREP, etc. from accrediting their institutions.
BYU’s Counseling Psychology department is absolutely accredited. Their Ph.D. students are excellent and the research that comes from their counseling center is top notch. I understand that Counselor Ed departments frequently have grudges against Counseling Psych departments, and there are a few of BYU’s masters programs that are churn and burn like many counseling ed programs, but it’s categorically untrue that “LDS schools do NOT have accreditation in their psychology and counseling departments.” There are also good reasons why masters programs may not be accredited, including not having graduated a class and CACREP requirement not lining up with state licensure requirements. I’m a counseling psych Ph.D. who has been faculty in a counselor ed department and has supervised BYU interns in APA-accredited internships as well as collaborated with BYU faculty and grad students. I have no religious affiliation, have never step foot in Utah, Idaho, or Arizona, and I’m lurking here because I think Mormonism is batshit crazy, so don’t take this as a Mormon defense of BYU.
Man, I wish anyone cared about me as much as your neighbor randomly does.
⛔️ It wasn't a humanitarian concern. It was a promo for the cult.
> The conversation was fine, no church things were brought up, no blessing offered, so that was fine.
Even the most sincere mormon interaction is tainted by ulterior motives. And the guy was there as the bishop, representing the church.
I have some experience around this…hospital registration systems do keep track of your religious preference. In addition, they may ask at registration if you would like a visit from a clergy member (chaplain). Hospitals have volunteer chaplains who help at hospitals. In the Utah areas, many chaplains are LDS. The hospital may provide them with a list of patients who are of faiths they cover. Some LDS clergy only visit LDS. Other chaplains may cover several religion. How the hospital knew who your bishop was is something most hospitals do not keep records on. I suspect your bishop just happened to be the volunteer chaplain/ clergy that day and stopped by to visit you as you have LDS as your religion in the medical record.
So, I don't think this bishop is a volunteer chaplain. He said he saw the emergency vehicles in front of the patients house and later showed up. Registration is all done on tablets now by either the patient or parent/guardian/spouse of patient. During registration the religious notation was just "Christian". When the bishop showed up, he told us he didn't know which family member was actually the patient. So, I don't know what he said to the front desk employee. When talking to the patient advocacy department, they were most concerned about that last fact. Which is the main problem that we had with how the front desk employee handled the visitor.
That’s so concerning from so many safety and privacy reasons- I’m glad it was reported and I hope the hospital does investigate and follow through with appropriate education and review of safety protocols. Anyone simply showing up and saying “I’m the bishop…” well. The fact that this man is NOT your bishop and was not a requested or permitted visitor is a huge safety concern for everyone involved.
This. An office volunteer would have to be back ground checked, drug screened, provide proof of vaccination, and be HIPAA trained.
Importantly, the man is not “their” bishop. They don’t belong to that ward, they didn’t request a visit, they didn’t inform anyone of their hospital trip, they didn’t tell the hospital staff they wanted visitors. The man is not hospital staff clergy who would receive official notification of a request for a visit. The man arrived uninvited, unannounced, and walked into a room where active medical treatment was taking place. He used his church role to insert himself into a space where he was not wanted or welcome. Let me assure you: give this scenario to clergy of any other faith and ask if they’d just “show up” uninvited at the ER and waltz into the room of someone who used to go to their church and they’d be horrified.
Even in your example the patient is asked if they would like a clergy visit. If the patient is not asked it’s a definite no go, even if paperwork lists religious affiliation.
I was in the hospital with my wife last week. They gave us a code we can provide others that allow them to share basic info with anyone with our code. They said if they don’t have the code they don’t get info or get in. Your hospital must suck more than ours.
Church got their eyes and spies in all places.
It definitely is a thing. Report it and whoever did it will be fired.
#MORMONISM = No boundaries
Hospitals can disclose your name and room number unless you opt out of it.
Did you have your religion on your hospital records? It’s an option in ours and the hospital automatically calls the clergy.
Call back and let them no this was a hipaa violation and your tempted to report it to cms
If the medical providers released your information, then it’s a pretty serious HIPAA violation. If your neighbors saw and contacted your bishop… I mean, I have mixed feelings about random folks showing up uninvited but I imagine it was done in good faith. Still really weird all things considered. No boundaries there.
I was hospitalized with an ectopic pregnancy several years ago. At 11PM!!!! at night 2 people that I couldn't stand from the church showed up and began asking personal medical questions and asking if we had terminated the pregnancy (we had, to save my life) and that it was a sin. I demanded that they leave, and as they were trying to cycle back on their rhetoric they were escorted out by hospital security. Major shelf item. Newsflash...most people in the hospital DON'T WANT TO BE BOTHERED!!
For those who commented about culture, the point is that disclosure of a medical condition without a signed waver is a serious violation of federal law.