Inclusion Daily Express -- Patient Walks Away From Nursing Home After Hours Of Waiting . . . And Waiting

Inclusion Daily Express Logo

International Disability Rights News Service
Click here for today's headlines & home page

Keeping advocates informed, inspired and connected since 1999.
Click here for daily or weekly delivery . . . OR
Try Inclusion Daily Express for ten days FREE . . .

Patient Walks Away From Nursing Home After Hours Of Waiting . . . And Waiting
By Dave Reynolds, Inclusion Daily Express
February 21, 2008

SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA--It's not usually news when nothing happens.

But the 'nothing' that happened to William Etzler has caused the San Francisco Chronicle and local television stations to take notice.

Ambulance workers transferred Etzler, who is recovering from a stroke, from San Francisco General Hospital to the Laguna Honda Hospital nursing home at about 10 o'clock Tuesday morning.

For the next six hours or so, nothing happened.

Nobody admitted Etzler to the nursing home. Nobody talked to him.

Family attorney Charles Kelly said nobody at Laguna Honda made any contact with the 54-year-old man.

Later that afternoon, Laguna Honda staff called police after they could not find Etzler anywhere at the facility.

Police finally found Etzler on Thursday -- at his girlfriend's home.

Now Laguna Honda officials and the ambulance company are blaming each other for the mix-up.

Laguna Honda spokesman Marc Slavin said: "There was never any transfer of appropriate paperwork with our nursing staff, and (Etzler) made a choice to leave the facility."

Richard Angotti, spokesman for St. Joseph's Ambulance Co., said: "We handed off all the documentation from San Francisco General. They received everything, we did our job, as we do every day, and I know the responsibility falls upon that nursing staff."

Kelly told the San Francisco Chronicle that somebody has to be responsible.

"There was a fumble at the handoff," Kelly said. "You make people sign for packages -- you mean you don't sign for human beings? That's unacceptable."

Operated by the city and county of San Francisco, Laguna Honda is the largest nursing home in the United States and the oldest publicly-funded nursing home in the state of California.

Related:
"Man who vanished from Laguna Honda turns up at girlfriend's" (San Francisco Chronicle)
http://www.inclusiondaily.com/news/2008/red/0221d.htm
"Family Wants Answers After Missing Stroke Victim Found" (KTVU-TV)
http://www.ktvu.com/news/15373700/detail.html
"Laguna Honda Hospital -- Largest Nursing Home In US" (Inclusion Daily Express Archives)
http://www.inclusiondaily.com/news/institutions/ca/lagunahonda.htm

Click here for top of this page

Purchase this story for your website or newsletter . . .

Here's what subscribers say about Inclusion Daily Express. . .

Keeping advocates informed, inspired and connected since 1999.
Click here for daily or weekly delivery . . . OR
Try Inclusion Daily Express for ten days FREE . . .

Get your news here!