Grandma escaped hospital, can my family sue?

I work at a hospital and it happens all the time. Patients go outside to smoke cigarettes, get high, drink.
Why do you all want to sue? Was she hurt?
It could be turned around on your family as you knew she was suffering Alzheimer’s, so why wasn’t a family member with her at all times?

You would only have recourse if you made advance arrangements with the hospital to restrain her.

Sue? Likely not. Nothing happened. She wandered and was found.

You can file a report against the hospital. You can also contact a social worker to help set up a safer situation for your grandmother. For the interim I suggest putting a GPS on grandma.

Anyone can sue anyone. I could sue you for your question causing me emotional distress, but not only would loose, I’d expect you to counter-sue me with a frivolous lawsuit which I would certainly loose and be stuck paying for your legal expenses plus compensating you for wasting your time. IANAL, but I don’t think you have much of a case.

Maybe you could argue she should have been on a locked ward since she has alzheimers, but then depending on your hospital that would probably mean she needs to be on the psyche ward, which isn’t always so great.

Why not call a lawyer and see if you have grounds to sue?

I would go with what @JLeslie said. Find out if you can. I suspect you probably can. As hospitals are responsible for patients. Was it specified upon her admittance? My dad went missing from an old age home for a short period. It was highly stressful. I was relieved they found him in one piece. It does happen a lot. Homes, hospitals etc., are busy places it is not always easy to keep track.

Next time perhaps make sure she is in a more secure ward, is the best suggestion I can offer. (As in lock up). Plus notify the Matron or Hospital Manager of this mishap.

@JLeslie The doctor who did all her testing had to restrain her because she, repeatedly threw things at the hospital staff, and threatened to “shoot everyone up” I guess they felt like she didn’t need it after awhile. My family is in the process of going through good reputable laywers.

Is your grandmother likely to end up in this hospital again? Maybe a better course of action would be to talk to her doctor and find out how everyone can improve their reactions to her behaviour to keep her safe during her next stay.

Who was injured? You nor your family can’t claim emotional distress. You didn’t even know she was missing. I’d thank my lucky stars she wasn’t injured and do as @glacial suggests and find a way to turn the situation into an educational/training experience for your family and the hospital administration and staff.

Was she relocated by your family immediately following the incident? What was done, by either the hosptial, your family or both, to insure she was safe when she was returned to her room? I’m not really clear on what you would be seeking in a lawsuit.

How would they know that she had alzheimers when they saw her walking out the door? She is obviously an adult and has every right to leave. Sorry tis happened, but you can be thankful she was found.

As @gorillapaws said, you can sue anyone for anything; but you have as much chance as winning as an escaped convict has of suing a prison for letting him escape. Even if you could win, though, what would it accomplish? You’d just be taking away the money they could use to increase security or hire more nurses. In other words, you’d just be making it more likely that someone else’s grandmother would escape—and maybe that grandmother won’t be so lucky as to be found safe and sound. How about just talking to the hospital about what could be done better?

@paperbackhead Does the hospital have a locked ward? Regardless of the law suit, if she is going to get sick again you need to think about what to do next time. Being restrained sucks, most likely the hospital has a policy to remove restraints as soon as she is calm. A locked ward would allow her to move around the floor at least. You might want to think about a special facility that has special services for people with alzheimer’s :(.

Was she wearing her hospital gown when she walked out? Or, did she change into her street clothes? At minimum. Make sure she does not have her street clothes in the room so she will stand out if she is leaving the hospital.

^^^ OP said, “I don’t understand how there were people around to see a patient walk out with a hospital gown, and slippers- ”

If your intent is to gamble and try to make a buck off this unfortunate situation than sure, you can sue. You can spend a lot of money and probably lose since there was no harm done. But you might get lucky with a sympathetic jury.

Or, if you actually want to effect change and do a good deed, then file a complaint with the hospital and ask to speak to the nursing director to work with the hospital to come up with a protocol to minimize the risk of this happening again.

My mil was in skilled nursing. She got up and fell (broke her collar bone) and so they put an alarm on her bed so they would know if she got up again. You could request that if she is hospitalized again. Once they a on notice that she is a “traveler” they will take precautions to make sure she doesn’t travel to far.

^^^ I had forgotten that my mother also had that alarm device on her bed when she cracked her pelvis, even though she was still compos mentis. There was an instinct to try to get out of bed however, that the alarm prevented.

The nurses also attached one to her chair when Ma was allowed to sit up but not stand up.

I’m sorry your family had this scare. Patient safety is the highest priority of most hospitals and in fact, their renewed accreditation takes incidents like this into account.

In our hospital, the moment a patient is noted missing, an “Adult Elopement” code is called on the overhead with the last known location (“Code Yellow 3Tower”) and each department’s safety official goes out into the halls searching. Security monitors the cameras and the patient is usually found quickly and an emergency consult determines need for restraint, alarms or additional security.

Before you consider a lawsuit, please file a formal complaint with the hospital administrator and you can even check with JCAHO to see if this was an anomaly or recurring problem.

Your grandmother was thankfully uninjured, and I understand how upset you must feel but the most important thing is to make sure the facility is aware of where they failed.

I know, if that happened in my hospital, there would be an immediate investigation, policy reform and employee education and reparations to the family. There may not be any need for a suit to be brought.

@JLeslie She wasn’t in a ward, it was just like a regular hospital room. As far as I know she just had a hospital gown on.

@Blueroses Thank you for your detailed response. I’ll talk it over with my other family members.

@paperbackhead Obviously, she was not on a locked ward or floor, my question was does the nearest hospital have one if she is horpitalized again? But, what @Judi suggested, the bed alarm, sounds like a much better solution.

@Judi The alarm on the bed sounds like a great idea, I got word from the doctor that she may have to go home with a 24hr nurse which would be a lot better than being put into a home/ or being kept at such hospital.

It would be a 24 hour aide. A nurse will probably visit once or twice a week, depending on what nurse related help and monitoring she needs.

@JLeslie She had an aide stay with her once a week. But that was exactly it…she was just an aide, she needs an actual nurse who’s trained in the medical field if or anything goes wrong. If it were up to me I would put her in a nursing home, cause aside from her mental issues she often claims that she wants to commit suicide, leaves the stove on, and gets physical with people.