Staff at Mayo General Hospital has come in for strong criticism after it has emerged that an 85-year-old man who has breathing difficulties was discharged from the hospital at 3.30am on Wednesday morning and sent home to an empty house.
It is understood the frail pensioner attended the A&E department at Castlebar Hospital in Mayo because he was experiencing respiratory problems, however he was disgracefully discharged from the hospital at approximately 3.30am, and sent back to his empty home in a taxi. The pensioners condition then got significantly worse within a matter hours which forced him to call his local doctor, who in turn rang an ambulance which took the man back to the same facility at 10.30am.
The appalling actions by staff at the hospital has angered one local County Councillor John Caulfield who said: “At half-two in the morning his neighbour got a call asking if he could pick him up and he said, ‘I can’t’ and they said ‘in that case we’ll get a taxi he’s going out of here’. “He landed home at 3.30am and had to call the doctor, with the result he was back in hospital at 10.30am after the ambulance took him there at 9.30am. “The man is 85, has respiratory problems and suffers severe nose bleeds and he was sent home in the dead of night in a rural area.”
The Fianna Fail councillor, further explained that who knows the man personally, before stating the hospital shouldn’t have sent the pensioner home by taxi, because the driver wasn’t a local resident and wouldn’t have known the area. Councillor Caulfield added: “I’d love to know the cost of the taxi and the cost of his local doctor and for an ambulance to get him back to hospital. “It was all totally pointless. “They wouldn’t allow prisoners out in the middle of the night. There would be arrangements made so they could get home or are picked up. Here we have the most vulnerable people in society being put out in the early hours. I can’t fathom what’s going on.
“He was released with a condition which could be life-threatening and he wouldn’t have assistance if anything happened.” Cllr Caulfield added: “A taxi in the middle of the night would have cost €100 as a round trip from Castlebar Hospital is an hour and 20.”
Meanwhile a spokesman for the HSE said it could not comment on individual cases.