A Vernon woman is voicing her concerns after she says the local hospital didn't tell her when it discharged her 100-year-old mother late at night.
Pat Russell was taken by ambulance to Vernon Jubilee Hospital after suffering two falls in her retirement home on Oct. 30.
After arriving at the hospital around 4 p.m., Russell was put in an emergency room bay and doctors ordered x-rays, daughter Carole Fawcett said.
Fawcett was called around 9 p.m. and told by a nurse her mom would be discharged, which raised some alarm bells.
"I said I didn't want her to be discharged, I would like her to be observed for the night, because after all, she is 100 years old," she said.
at 11:15 p.m., Fawcett got a call from Inter-Facility Transport, who said her mother had been discharged and sent home. The transport company was with Russell outside her retirement home, and Russell didn't have keys to get into the building.
Fawcett rushed to the home and was relieved to see that someone had let her mother into the lobby, but was perplexed at not having been contacted by the hospital to be told her mother would be sent home.
Aside from the lack of notification, she said she thinks it's unreasonable that her mother was discharged so soon, given that she had to be carried onto her bed by the transport company attendants.
"I just can't believe that somebody wouldn't have the common sense to see that somebody who's 100, who might have been traumatized by a fall, wouldn't have been kept for one measly night," she said.
Fawcett said she's since received a call from the hospital's emergency room manager apologizing for the incident.
"They said it shouldn't have happened."
She said the apology was welcome, but just hopes it "doesn't happen to anybody else ever again."
Chris Crawford, director of clinical operations at Vernon Jubilee Hospital, also expressed regret in an email to The Morning Star.
"Interior Health sincerely apologizes for this patient and family’s experience. We always seek to learn and improve our practices and our staff have reached out directly to better understand how we could do better and improve our practices in the future," he said.
Crawford said discharge planning amounts to a conversation between a care team and the patient, and when required, Interior Health works with the patient to arrange their transportation home "and ensure they are going to a safe place."
