90-year-old blind B.C. hospital humiliation victim gets apology from premier

B.C. Premier Christy Clark has weighed in on an incident that saw a blind, 90-year-old woman sent home in a taxi from a suburban Vancouver hospital in her pajamas, wrapped in a sheet and bleeding at 2 a.m.

The Fraser Health Authority, which administers Delta Hospital, has apologized for the treatment of Vivian Fitzpatrick, who'd been brought in to emergency Tuesday evening with symptoms related to high blood pressure.

"Of course I'm concerned," Clark said during a visit to Washington, D.C., Thursday, according to CBC News.

"They've apologized as they should have because that's just not the right way to treat people," said Clark, who is in Washington, D.C., today.

"People deserve to be treated better than that. So I know health authorities are dealing with it and I'm confident they will."

Fitzpatrick, who is legally blind, was taken to the hospital by ambulance around 10:30 p.m. local time complaining of intense leg pain, which turned out to be caused by high blood pressure, CBC News said.

After being checked out by a doctor, Fitzpatrick said a nurse came and told her she was going home.

"The nurse came in and said 'the doctor says you can go home, there's nothing wrong with you,'" she told CBC News.

[ Related: Study: World not prepared to support growing elderly population ]

When Fitzpatrick pointed out she wasn't dressed, the nurse said the hospital had called a taxi. She was given a single sheet to wrap around herself and socks for her bare feet.

Fitzpatrick told the Vancouver Sun she couldn't understand why she was being hustled out the door.

"My bed was going to be empty and I couldn't see anybody in the emergency room waiting for a bed, or anybody else waiting for a bed," she said.

"The hospital was quiet. I couldn't figure out why they couldn't wait another four hours or five hours so I could phone my daughter and tell her to get some clothes and drive me home."

The taxi arrived at 2:30 a.m. Wednesday and Fitzpatrick was wheeled across a windswept parking lot in pouring rain.

When she got home, her live-in caregiver noticed her arm was bleeding from blood tests she'd been given at the hospital.

"She took off my jacket, and my jacket was soaked right through with blood ... not my jacket, my pyjamas top and the sheet around me was soaked in blood," Fitzpatrick told CBC News.

The health authority apologized to Fitzpatrick and her family.

"This is a very unfortunate incident and Fraser Health has apologized to the family for any inconvenience and distress this may have caused," said a statement issued by spokeswoman Tasleem Juma.

"Out of respect for patient confidentiality, we cannot discuss the details of the case, but we can reassure the family and the public that we are taking this very seriously."

However, Paddy Munro, Fitzpatrick's daughter, said the hospital told her a junior nurse was responsible, Global News said.

Munro, who said the hospital never called her even though she is listed as her mother's primary contact, plans to file a grievance with the Patient Care Quality Office.

“My mom and I want to make it very clear we are not blaming the nurses and doctors because we’ve seen how busy they are,” she told Global News.

“But there’s no reason they could possibly give me that would rationalize why they treated my mother this way.”

Fitzpatrick agreed the blame shouldn't fall on the ER staff.

"They were good to me," she told the Sun. "It has something to do with the system."

This year's Global AgeWatch Index ranks Canada fifth out of 91 surveyed countries when it comes to conditions for the elderly, in part because universal health care provides "comprehensive coverage for necessary hospital and physician services."

But clearly there are lapses, often due to pressure to free up beds in acute-care hospitals.

When it comes to the elderly, many hospitals face a dilemma of having infirm seniors taking up acute-care beds for long periods of time instead of being cared for in long-term facilities or at home.

Ottawa school teacher Barbara Korwin fought Ottawa Hospital to keep her 89-year-old mother, Marie, from being transferred to a nursing home or private-care retirement home.

“I think it’s wrong of the hospital to be doing this,” Korwin told the Ottawa Citizen last January. “To put an extremely frail senior in a place where their needs cannot be met, this is a very subtle form of euthanasia.”

Marie Korwin lived in her own home until 2010 but broke her pelvis and ended up in a retirement home the following year. She now suffers from dementia and is bed-ridden, needing help for the most basic things.

[ Related: Does Canada take care of its elderly? ]

Jane Meadus, a lawyer for the Toronto-based Advocacy Centre for the Elderly, told the Citizen she had handled 250 complaints about hospital discharges in Ontario over the previous year.

“The pressure on the families is absolutely incredible,” she said. “The problem here isn’t seniors holding up beds. The problem is that the system hasn’t been managed properly and there’s not enough long-term-care homes.”

Ontario, like most other provinces, encourages patients to recover at home or in a suitable extended-care facility.

“We try to present the options,” Ottawa Hospital vice-president Mike Tierney told the Citizen.

“We clearly state that our mandate is for acute care. When your acute care is done, we will try to transition you safely, efficiently and effectively to your next destination.”