Cancer patient sent home to die by taxi

Published on Wednesday 4 March 2009 09:13

A DYING cancer patient wearing her dressing gown was put in a taxi and sent home alone from hospital after asking to spend her final days with her family.

Despite being extremely frail and in pain, Helen Browning, 68, was put into a taxi by ERI staff as no ambulances were available.

The exhausted grandmother-of-four arrived at her horrified daughter's home several hours later having been discharged without painkillers.

Health chiefs today called the arrangements for getting Mrs Browning home "completely unacceptable" and apologised to her grieving family.

Mrs Browning, who died on February 24, had been bedridden for three months and weighed just four-and-a-half stones when she was discharged. Her daughter Adrienne Findlay, 39, said her mother had been in a terrible state when she arrived after a 90-minute journey through rush-hour traffic.

"We were stunned when we saw the taxi pull up, I just burst into tears," she said.

"She was exhausted and in so much pain because they had been unable to give her painkillers because she had been discharged, even though she was still there."

The family were incensed when they saw Mrs Browning was still wearing a hospital gown, slippers and a dressing gown, with all her warm clothes in carrier bags.

Mrs Findlay said: "She had bruises on her legs from when she'd just fallen into the taxi, and a tissue from coughing up bile, which happened as a result of her cancer. There was no dignity in it at all. She was doing the hospital a favour by freeing up some space, she knew she only had a few days left and she had to rock about in a taxi for all that time.

"We had agreed with nurses that she had to be brought back in an ambulance because she'd been in bed for three months and was extremely frail. There were six or seven phone calls between us and the ERI, the last one of which said she was on her way.

"My mum was very upset by it all and was so exhausted she could hardly speak. They said they didn't have any ambulances available at the time.

"The ironic thing is when the taxi arrived at the house there were five of us with cars who could have taken her back and at least let her lie in the back."

Mrs Browning, a former landlady of Leith's Portland Bar, died a week after arriving home. She was buried at the weekend.

Her family have now lodged a formal complaint over the matter.

James McCaffery, NHS Lothian's chief operating officer for acute services, said: "We would like to apologise to Mrs Browning's family, and express our sympathies for their recent loss.

"Mrs Browning's transportation arrangements were completely unacceptable. I am investigating to find out how this happened and to take steps to ensure it does not happen again.

"We wrote to Mrs Browning's family on February 18 offering to meet with them and discuss this in detail. We hope we can meet with them soon so that we can personally apologise."