After only being in the job a few weeks, the Minister for Health Jennifer Carroll MacNeill is already under pressure and is already finding out what the job entails on a day to day basis.
Before being discovered in a ditch by a member of the public this past weekend, an elderly patient who vanished from a Mayo hospital travelled six kilometres in the rain while wearing a gown, reports The Mirror.
After leaving the Sacred Heart Hospital in Castlebar early on Saturday morning, the frail man was found on his back in a drain with his naked legs in the air.
He had been moved there that day from Mayo University Hospital, which, in an effort to reduce overcrowding, is now employing 34 beds in one of the wards for acute medical patients, reports The Mirror.
Two villagers found the man around six miles from Castlebar in a secluded rural location.
He fell backwards and was discovered in a ditch next to a country road, unable to escape, in a confused state, reports The Mirror.
He was wearing a medical gown when they pulled him out of the drain. Despite his incoherence, he informed them he was trying to find his cows. After bringing him back to their home, they contacted Sacred Heart Hospital.
An Garda Síochána stated on Saturday night that they had been notified of a missing individual in Castlebar.
That night, two gardaí came to the patient’s residence and took him back to the hospital, reports The Mirror.
This kind of incidence involving Mayo University Hospital patients is not new to the hospital.
“The missing person was located and the search stood down,” the spokesman said, reports The Mirror.
This kind of incidence involving Mayo University Hospital patients is not new to the hospital.
An elderly woman vanished from the hospital at night in January 2022, prompting a manhunt. She was later found to be unharmed.
After spending 42 hours in the emergency room, a 69-year-old man with pneumonia and a disoriented condition vanished from the hospital a year later, reports The Mirror.
In temperatures ranging from -2 to 4 degrees, he walked out of the hospital wearing only a vest, pyjama bottoms, and slippers. Two days later, his body was recovered from a Castlebar river.
The Health Service Executive (HSE) was questioned by The Irish Mirror about if the patient who vanished on Saturday was experiencing health issues as a result of the event and whether his family had been notified, reports The Mirror.
Tell us your thoughts in the Facebook post and share this with your friends.
