SOS - Lack of Care

 

This weeks blog post comes from one of our Community Members, Susan, in which she shares a story that she found shocking outside of a local accident and emergency wing of a hospital in Scotland early Summer.

"I was appalled, for this man who had just had a stroke, it was COVID 19, 10 o'clock at night, -1 degrees, and he was just left there to go and find his way home. Left there with nothing."

 Susan lives in Glasgow and is a grandmother, carer and active in her local community. She is a community member with The Poverty Truth Community and a board member of Faith in the Community Scotland. She also a member of the UK co-research team as part of a 3 year international participatory research project in partnership with Oxford University looking at Understanding Poverty in All Its Forms. Susan is currently involved in a collaborative project with, ATD Fourth Word, Amnesty International and Just Fair.

'I had been up at accident and emergency with my dad. I wasn't allowed to go in obviously because of the COVID 19. So I had to wait outside. While I was outside (I was there for a while) different people were coming back and forth. 

I went inside the hospital doors because it was absolutely freezing that night, it was really really cold. There's a phone on the wall that you use for the taxi service. So a man came out and he's on the phone and I can hear him and he's saying “but my partner will come down, I'll stay in the car, whatever, I don't have the card, I don't have any money, but the money's in the house, I had to go straight to hospital, I've left everything in the house,” and then he's put the phone back and just put his hands up.   

I said “is he no giving you a taxi” and he said, I've no got a bank card with me and I've no got any money so they'll no book me a taxi they'll no get me one.”

Luckily before I left the house, I had put £10 in my pocket and I thought I'll just give him the £10 so I said take this money. He was refusing and he was saying I cannae take the money.  I said, look take the money. He proceeded to tell me how he'd been in the hospital that day cos he'd took a stroke and I could see by his face and that he'd took a stroke. It was quite clear. I was actually appalled by the fact that he was just released from hospital.  It was COVID 19, it was 10 o'clock at night, it was -1 degrees in our Summer and he was just left to go find his way home. 

And I was shocked at the taxi service  who weren't very understanding and wouldn't let the taxi come either. And I just feel that it was really quite brutal and he was left, it was late at night, everything is deserted, even if he had bus fare, buses weren't running as they normally would, so he could have waited, and he couldn't get a direct bus from where he was anyway, and he'd just took a stroke.

 I was really shocked about the whole set up and I thought I can't believe that somebody was released after being in hospital with a stroke and just left and that nobody checked that he had the money to get home, they didn't finish off the service they were giving him. He was left there with nothing.

I was just glad he took my money and we phoned and the lassie called him a taxi and that was him he got home I imagine okay. But the whole thing to me I thought was just really appalling that just the lack of care, just the lack of care.'