WINNIPEG – Heather Brenan’s doorstep death hours after she was sent home from a Winnipeg hospital could have been prevented, her daughter Dana testified Monday morning.
“If she had been in hospital and everyone tried to do their best, then I could say they were trying,” Brenan said. “Sending her home … shows a callous lack of regard.”
Dana Brenan believes her mother was seen as a nuisance by medical staff who just wanted to “get rid of her.”
Heather Brenan, 68, died in January 2012 after she collapsed on her doorstep.
READ MORE: Family hopes inquest into woman’s death brings ER discharge changes
Her daughter testified that her mother had been in the emergency room at Seven Oaks Hospital but was never given a bed.
The ER seemed overwhelmed and her mother was seen as “an inconvenience,” she said.
Brenan was sent home in a cab in the middle of a frigid night without her house keys. Her daughter was in the United Kingdom at the time.
Months later, two other patients were sent home in taxis from a different hospital and died on their doorsteps.
READ MORE: Two men die outside after being sent home from hospital in taxis
The health authority said at the time that there was no systemic problem and an internal investigation found the hospital did nothing wrong.
“I don’t want this to happen to other people,” Dana Brenan told the inquest Monday. “I get the sense patient flow is more important to the administration of the hospitals and the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority than actually curing patients.
“This shouldn’t happen to anyone.”
Bill Olson, lawyer for the health authority, told Brenan the medical consensus is her mother’s death “could not have been predicted and, in all likelihood, would have occurred whether your mother was in hospital or not.”
Heather Brenan was repeatedly tested during her time in the emergency department and “the conclusion of all these tests were that your mother was medically stable,” Olson said.
Brenan said she would have felt better about her mother’s death if she could believe an effort was made to help her.
The way she was treated showed “a callous lack of regard for a very ill person.
“While she might have ultimately died … collapsing in the back lane and perhaps freezing to death is such an undignified way to go,” she said.
“Taking her off all her medication and sending her home under stressful circumstances were all contributing factors.”
Manitoba’s chief medical examiner called the inquest to look into Brenan’s death and to “examine hospital policy regarding the discharge of patients at night, particularly those who are elderly, frail, and who reside alone.”
The inquest, scheduled to sit for three weeks, is also to determine whether a shortage of acute-care beds might have been a factor in Brenan’s death.
Comments