67-year-old Pincher Creek woman angry at hospital for discharging her with no shoes, money, ID

From the comfort of a friend's home in High River, Diana Calder recalls the moments of panic and anger Monday night after getting discharged from the Foothills hospital emergency department without any of her clothes, shoes, glasses, money or identification.

She'd been rushed to Calgary by ambulance a day-and-a-half earlier from the hospital in Pincher Creek, Alta., where she lives, suffering from severe dizziness, nausea, headaches and leg pain.

The 67-year-old says she'd left all of her belongings behind with a friend who brought her to the Pincher Creek hospital before they knew Calder would be transferred to the Calgary facility.

But she says the nurse at the Foothills ER didn't seem to care about the fact that it was 8 o'clock at night and that Calder was stranded hours from home. Nor Calder says, was she the least bit helpful.

"And you know this isn't the way to treat a pensioner, it really isn't," she said.

"I said, 'I don't even have clothes.' So she did give me a pair of sweat pants and a T-shirt and she said, 'well you just have to get out of here — we need your bed.'"

This abrupt and disheartening discharge brought tears to Calder's eyes, but then her survival skills kicked in.

She ended up hitchhiking, begging for money, accepting a pair of shoes from strangers, and eventually a ride from Calgary police to a friend's home in High River.

"I just felt like such a fool, you know. I got money at home, I could've paid for anything, but I had nothing."

I just felt like such a fool you know, I got money at home, I could've paid for anything but I had nothing.-  Diana Calder

The backstory

On June 16, Calder fell off her horse and banged her head. She owns a greenhouse, Baily Hill Greenhouse, several kilometres west of Pincher Creek.

A friend found her semi-conscious after the incident and called for an ambulance.

Calder was taken to Pincher Creek hospital and then sent to Lethbridge for a CT scan. Doctors diagnosed her with a concussion and a friend took her home.

The next several days were spent in bed suffering from severe headaches and nausea. The following Sunday, a week after her fall, she became extremely dizzy and started to vomit, again.

A friend drove her to the Pincher Creek hospital. On the way, Calder soiled her clothes so her friend said she'd take them home and wash them. The friend also took Calder's purse for safekeeping.

Calder was then transferred to the Foothills emergency department in Calgary to undergo further testing. She arrived around lunchtime with nothing but a hospital gown and says staff treated her well during her roughly 18-hour stay in emergency.

Then at about 8 p.m., Monday night, Calder says everything changed.

A nurse came in and told her an MRI exam ruled out anything more serious than a concussion, so she was able to go home.

"And I was like, 'OK this is going to take some figuring at this hour of the night to get me home because it's, you know, this would be almost a three-hour trip.' And she's like, 'well that's your problem, haven't you organized something?' And I said, 'I'm not really in shape to organize this at the moment.'"

Calder doesn't have a cellphone. She says doesn't have any family. And all of her friends are elderly and afraid of driving in the dark. So she asked the nurse if she could talk to a social worker, or possibly go to a women's shelter for the night, until someone could come get her in the morning.

But a social worker never came and the nurse wouldn't agree to organizing a women's shelter.

Calder went on to ask if there was a lost-and-found so she could borrow some clothes. The nurse returned with a pair of sweats and a T-shirt.

Calder says she was disoriented and had trouble seeing without her glasses but left the hospital anyway, barefoot and penniless, determined to try to get home.

As she started heading south, she hitched a ride from a couple who dropped her off at the Sunnyside LRT station. She then borrowed money from a group of teenagers to buy a ticket and made her way to the Shawnessy LRT station.

But as it started to get dark, Calder changed her mind and decided to see if she could spend the night at a friend's place in High River.

Again, with the help of strangers, someone called Calder's friend, who's in her 80s, who agreed to meet Calder at the Shawnessy LRT station.

Unfortunately the two older women couldn't find one another, but fortunately others came to Calder's aid.

A woman gave Calder a pair of shoes and a young man gave her a jacket.

Then, in desperation, she asked a bus driver to call police for help.

"I was absolutely frozen and the police came, city police, and took me all the way to High River to my friend's house … I mean they are angels."

"People are so wonderful when you are in trouble."

Calgary police confirm that an officer did get a call around 11:30 at night, picked up Calder at the LRT station, and drove her to High River.

AHS response

CBC News reached out to Alberta Health Services to ask what its policy is in cases like Calder's. 

AHS was not able to confirm Calder's account of the events at the hospital.

In an email the agency said: "We are very sorry to hear that a patient is upset with their experience at an AHS facility. Our goal is always to provide access to safe quality care for all Albertans."

"AHS encourages patients or family members with a concern or complaint about care to contact the AHS Patient Relations office at 1-855-550-2555 to allow us to follow up in more detail," the statement said.

"We are reaching out to the patient involved to discuss her concerns."

"Hospital-based care is designed to meet immediate and urgent needs for all people who need it. When a patient no longer requires the high level of care provided in hospitals, AHS has care teams on hand to ensure a smooth transition back into the community. Patients are only discharged from acute care when they are medically stable.

"To protect confidentiality, AHS cannot discuss information about a patient," the email said.

Call for change

In the days that have followed, Calder has had more time to stew about what happened, and what she describes as borderline-abusive comments by the nurse.

Calder also found out that when a friend had called Foothills hospital to check on Calder on Monday, the friend was told Calder would either be admitted or transferred back to Pincher Creek hospital, leaving the friend to believe Calder was in good hands.

Calder plans to launch a complaint against the nurse and the hospital for the way she was treated in the hopes of preventing a similar ordeal and to urge administrators to develop a policy for out-of-town patients, or those who are stranded without anyway of getting home. 

She says things could have turned out much worse.

"It's just totally, it's ridiculous, there should be some sort of protocol, like what do we do in this situation."