Avelina Ferreira just latest Alzheimer patient left to ‘disappear’
The lackadaisical fashion in which hospital authorities appear to deal with vulnerable Alzheimer’s patients has come inconveniently to the fore this week with the discovery of a body that was originally described as “too decomposed to determine gender”.
It quickly transpired that the body, discovered in undergrowth close to one of Lisbon’s largest hospitals, São Francisco Xavier, was wearing a yellow hospital wristband (yellow meaning ‘urgent’). From here, it did not take long to deduce that this body was that of Avelina Ferreira, 73, a woman suffering from Alzheimer’s who had been separated from her husband by hospital staff on December 12, 2023, while waiting to be seen by a doctor.
Instead of being supervised in any effective way, Mrs Ferreira managed to pick herself up, leave the A&E room into which she had been taken, walk unheeded through the hospital and out through the main doors to the outside world.
Her husband meantime, unaware that his vulnerable wife was not receiving even the minimum of care, remained ‘waiting for her’ in the waiting area in which he had been instructed to stay.
He waited for seven hours – only to be told eventually that no-one knew where his wife was.
And until this week, that was the last he and his wider family knew.
Now, not surprisingly, Mrs Ferreira’s loved ones are lodging a ‘criminal complaint’ (against whom they are uncertain). They want to get to the bottom of who should be held responsible for the horrible way in which Avelina Ferreira met her death.
“There is no complaint, for now, against the hospital”, João Medeiros, the family’s lawyer, has told Correio da Manhã tabloid. The hope is that “through evidence obtained in this investigation that is naturally being made by the Public Prosecutor’s Office”, it will eventually become clear where responsibility lies”.
The eventual ‘crimes’ could be against hospital staff for negligence, or for negligent management, says CM.
The hospital board has stressed that it is “totally available” and “interested” in collaborating with investigating entities.
The first major red flag in this tragedy is that Mrs Ferreira’s husband was “prohibited” from accompanying his wife into the A&E department (Urgências). This is against the law.
Says SIC: “The law is clear: the right to care is universal. Despite the universality of the measure, the law that enshrines the rights of healthcare users emphasises the most vulnerable: ‘The right to family accompaniment (…) is recognised for people in a situation of dependency and for people with an incurable illness in an advanced stage and at the end of life’.”
The second major red flag is that Avelina Ferreira was not the first Alzheimer’s patient to be left to leave a major hospital, and die alone in the almost immediate vicinity.
In 2020 (July 14) a 66-year-old woman suffering from Alzheimer’s was ‘discharged’ from Cascais Hospital without anyone notifying her family. She left the hospital, and was discovered, dead by the side of the road, two days later.
In 2022 (July 6) a 78-year-old man in a similar situation was left to make his own way home from Torres Vedras hospital. He also suffered from Alzheimer’s disease, and no one at the hospital had had the foresight to alert his family about his discharge. His body was discovered two weeks later, close to the hospital.
Three cases in three years, and “no known implications for the respective hospitals”, says SIC.
What is positive is that the disappearance of Avelina Ferreira opened the floodgates on outrage. Even before her body was discovered, a petition began circulating, calling for the prevention and a response to the disappearance of people with dementia. It currently has more than 9,300 signatures.
Meantime, São Francisco Xavier hospital has said that it “regrets the death of Avelina Ferreira” and has opened an internal inquiry “which is not aimed at any particular professional”.
SIC Notícias adds that the Public Prosecutor’s Office has opened other inquiries into the cases of disappearance and subsequent deaths of other people from other hospitals “the outcome of which are as yet unknown”.
natasha.donn@portugalresident.com
