LEBANON, N.H.—The Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon is telling its employees living in a domestic partnership they will have a year to get married or obtain a civil union or lose their benefits.
The New Hampshire Union Leaders says if the employees don't comply they will not be covered by the hospital's benefit package after January 2011.
Dartmouth Hitchcock spokesman Jason Aldous says 236 employees, about 3 percent of the hospital's eligible staff, receive domestic-partner benefits.
Aldous says that when the hospital originally adopted the domestic partner eligibility criteria it did so because same-sex couples in committed relationships did not have access to benefits through marriage or civil union.
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Information from: New Hampshire Union Leader, http://www.unionleader.com
