78-Year-Old Woman Slashes Her Wrists After Being Left To Fend For Herself After Midnight By Nurses At ARH
By Mike Archer. 78-year-old Marion Douglas went to see her doctor in Abbotsford on Tuesday afternoon, Sept 3, and he noticed something was not right with her. She was unusually distraught and he had her taken to Abbotsford Regional Hospital (ARH) by ambulance.
Photo: Hospital administrators enjoy a celebration Augusts 23rd of the five years they have been managing Abbostrford Regional Hospital and Cancer Centre.
At around midnight she was discharged but had no way of getting home. Douglas needs a walker in order to get around and she lives more than 20 blocks from the hospital on McDougall Ave.
She asked two nurses at the hospital if she could stay until morning when the buses started running and they told her she could not stay.
So; after midnight, 78-year-old Marion Douglas struck out for home. It took her over two hours to get home.
She went back the ARH on Saturday, Sept 7 and this time was admitted. Marion was so upset by the lack of care she received, the fact she was forced to walk over 20 blocks in the middle of the night to get home, and the other issues in her life causing her to be distraught that she slashed her wrists.
Marion Douglas is now in the psych ward at ARH and hospital officials were first asked on September 6 about the incident and have yet to confirm exact details of what occurred. Tasleem Juma of the FHA told Abbotsford Today this afternoon that FHA has a policy in place to deal with situations which emerge where a patient makes it known that they are unable to get home.
“We have a policy in place whereby arrangements can be made to pay for a phone call, bus fare or a taxi if someone is unable to get home on their own,” she said.
Juma said the FHA is still looking into the events of September 3 and will have more to say.
Watch for updates
Edited 16:37 20/09/13
Photo: Marcus Akhtar, Access Health Abbotsford Ltd. operations director (Foreground L-R), Vivian Giglio, Fraser Health Authority vice-president clinical operations, and Dr. Max Coppes, BC Cancer Agency president cut the cake at the 5th anniversary celebration of the Abbotsford Regional Hospital and Cancer Centre on August 23, 2013. Mike Marasco, Partnerships BC (L) and Walter Hillier, Plenary CEO (middle), look on Friday. (Photo: BC Cancer Agency)
Meg Hernandez Says:
That’s disgusting. That poor woman should not have been made to walk home. In the UK, she’d have been given cab fare. Should be illegal to release people with no means of getting home. All that money spent on a new hospital with and not a penny spent on retraining the ass-backwards staff
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Sobe Daya Says: I understand they need beds but why anyone would be discharged at midnight and then left to their own devices is beyond me. Did no one question how she was to get home? Was there not a change kitty that could have paid for a taxi for her? Was there no next of kin on the admitting paperwork? If only someone had cared enough or was not too busy to have noticed, this could have ended far differently.
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Kelly Foster Says: “Meg you beat me too it. England makes sure their patients get home.”
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Terry Stobbart Says: Just shortly after the ARC Hospital opened, I was admitted with chest pains, spent the day/evening there and was discharged at midnight. with no day clothes as I came in an ambulance, no shoes, they told me I had to leave the hospital. I had no money and I lived more than 20 blocks away. I, too, asked if I could stay til morning when I could get a bus or call someone, and was told no. This has happened to more than just a few people. It is terrible.
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Meg Hernandez Says: There’s a great charity in there somewhere. Publicly funded organization who will drive people home from the hospital. Especially on night shift!
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Based on what Terry Stobbard say I wonder how often it happens
Meg Hernandez Says: It happens all the time. I’ve heard about it far too often.
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