Taxi Driver Online

Daily Mail (London)

November 8, 2008 Saturday

IRE Edition

Patient died in attempt to walk 50 miles home

A JURY has recommended major changes be made in the way hospitals treat patients with disabilities after hearing how a deaf, 60-year-old man was killed on a 50-mile walk home from a hospital.

Séanie Flaherty was walking back to his home in Clifden, Co. Galway, when he was knocked down and killed, an inquest in Galway heard yesterday.

Mr Flaherty, who also had a speech impediment, had been treated in University Hospital Galway for a suspected broken arm in February this year.

He had been taken to the hospital from his home at Tullyvoheen in Clifden in a taxi organ-ised by HSE West – but no arrangements had been made to bring him home upon discharge.

Solicitor JJ Mannion, who represented Mr Flaherty’s family, said that he was an extremely popular man among the local community, and that it was well known he needed assistance.

But Tony O’Connor, senior counsel for the hospital, said that while Mr Flaherty’s hearing difficulty and speech impediment were highlighted in a doctor’s referral letter, other limitations were not apparent.

Mr Flaherty fell while working in the national school and was referred to University College Hospital by Dr Susan Wilson in Clifden. She told the inquest she organised for a HSE taxi to collect Mr Flaherty at his house. Taxi driver Danny Ryan told the inquest that the arrangement was to bring him one-way, and it was up to the hospital or the patient to organise transport home.

Staff at the University College Hospital said his arrival by HSE taxi should have been attached to a file, and transport home would have been arranged.

Coroner Ciaran McLoughlin said it was clear there was no procedure in the hospital for ensuring that patients with a disability would be brought safely home.

The jury asked that the HSE create a set of guidelines for discharging patients with a disability and another to be given to taxi drivers who bring such patients home.
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