Elderly woman wrongly discharged from hospital and taken to stranger’s house and left in their bed
AN ELDERLY woman hospital patient who was on morphine was taken to stranger’s house and left in their bed.
Joyce Wright, 83, was wrongly discharged and taken by ambulance staff, who used a key safe at another patient’s house to get in the door.
Her son Andy, 55, was not told his mother had been sent “home” on Tuesday afternoon.
He says the error was only discovered when the other patient’s relatives found his mum on Wednesday morning — 40 miles from where she lives.
Ambulance staff raced to the property in Skegness, Lincs, where they had left Mrs Wright.
She was still in the upstairs bedroom of the wrong patient’s house.
Joyce was taken back to hospital – but her family is devastated and hit out at the “epic error”.
Andy said: “It is unbelievable. What if they gave my mum the wrong medication? I thought patients wear wristbands so this can’t happen.”
Joyce, of Sleaford, Lincs, was in Pilgrim Hospital, Boston, after a fall, when she was mistaken for another female patient from Skegness who was ready to be discharged.
United Lincolnshire Hospitals NHS Trust and East Midlands Ambulance Service said last night: “We have spoken with both patients and their families to offer our heartfelt and sincere apologies.
“This clearly falls below the standard of care we want to deliver. A review is underway to ensure it does not happen again.”