HOSPITAL LET OAP,74, WALK HOME
Gran left in slippers and dressing gown
A stricken Blackburn granny had to walk home alone from St John’s Hospital in the middle of the night, it has emerged.
Barbara Hazzard (right), 74, was wearing just her dressing gown, nighty and slippers when she was discharged from A&E shortly before 3am on Saturday morning.
She had been rushed to hospital in an ambulance just four hours earlier
after suffering from severe heart pain.
After being advised that she could go home, Barbara was told NHS Lothian don’t provide transport home for patients.
Reception staff told her she would either have to phone a taxi or wait six hours for a bus.
Having not picked up any cash before the ambulance journey, and with no family members available to collect her, Barbara told staff she would not be able to pay for transport.
In a panic – and still feeling unwell – she left the hospital on her own to embark on the hour-and-a-half walk to Blackburn in the middle of the night.
Barbara said: “After being checked over, I was sitting there in my nighty, my dressing gown and my slippers with only my medical bag for company. That’s all I took to the hospital. No handbag, no money.
“The staff kept saying I must have family I can call. I said my daughter was an in-patient herself and my grandson stays in Kinross.
“They replied ‘we can’t do anything’.
“I said in that case I’ll need to walk it back to Blackburn and they never batted an eyelid. I turned on my heels and walked out of the door.
“I had in my mind that I would walk the route of the number 21 bus. I thought if I got to the main road I’d wave down a car and ask someone to give me a lift home.
“When I think of it now, I could have been murdered.”
Fortunately for grannyo-f-six Barbara, who is the secretary of the Women’s Social Service Club in Bathgate, a police van pulled up and she was taken home by PCs Pajewski and Robertson.
Barbara said: “They thought I’d escaped from a nursing home but they couldn’t believe it when I told them where I had come from.
“I am livid, not for myself but because I work with a lot of elderly people through my charity work.
“It was bad enough for me to be allowed to walk out of the hospital at 3am with nobody to help me. I’m quite compos mentis but a lot of 74-year-olds aren’t.
“My son is going mad about this. His words to me were that if the police hadn’t got me they could have been organising my funeral.”
Police Scotland Community Inspector Greg Forbes said: “We received a call from a taxi driver telling us that an elderly woman was wandering about in her night clothes.
“We dispatched two officers who picked the woman up and made sure she got home safely.”
Lothian MSP Neil Findlay has called for an investigation into the incident.
He said: “This is almost beyond belief. I understand the pressures facing our NHS but discharging a 74-yearold woman with heart problems who was wearing nothing but her night clothes in the middle of the night is completely unacceptable.
“There should be an immediate inquiry into what went wrong so that this can never happen again.”
Linlithgow MSP Fiona Hyslop said: “I expect NHS Lothian to conduct a thorough investigation and to support Mrs Hazzard with the dignity and respect entitled to someone in her situation.”
Jim Crombie, acting chief executive of NHS Lothian, confirmed an inquiry is underway. He said: “This was a distressing and upsetting episode for Mrs Hazzard and I would like to apologise to her that she had this experience following care in one of our hospitals.
“Mrs Haz z a rd has contacted us directly and we are investigating thoroughly to establish what happened. We will be in contact with her as soon as possible.”
Staff kept saying I must have family Barbara Hazzard