The body of an elderly man found yesterday near the Criminal Investigation Division (DIC) of the Lisbon PSP had been admitted to and discharged from the A&E department of Lisbon’s Hospital de S. Francisco Xavier in November, a hospital source has told Lusa, in what is a rather sanitised version of the truth.
The man had indeed been admitted to the Hospital on November 14. He had not however been formally ‘discharged’. He was triaged and observed clinically, “found oriented and autonomous” and then left in order to be called by the doctors when they were ready to see him.
When that call came through, the patient did not respond.
Hospital services “tried to contact the patient by telephone, without success. As a result, contact was made with the PSP (public security police) and the patient was considered to have abandoned the A&E department”.
How the elderly man came to end up dead, relatively close by on the Forte Alto do Duque road almost a month later is ‘a mystery’. But it is also not a first for this hospital: an elderly woman suffered the same fate in 2023 – and shortly afterwards another elderly woman was ‘discharged’ from the hospital to arrive back at the family home ‘dead’.
The common denominator in the latter cases was that both women suffered from Alzheimer’s Disease. This does not appear to have been the case in this week’s case (as the man was deemed ‘oriented and autonomous’).
A source for the Local Health Unit of Western Lisbon (ULSLO) said it was this judgement that led hospital staff to decide the patient did not require a tracking bracelet.
ULSLO has expressed “deep sorrow for the death” – and this far no reports have alluded to the man having any family members (who would, one presumes, have been looking for him). Reports have also not given any details of the man’s identity.
The fact remains, nonetheless, that this is the third case of an elderly person who is treated at Hospital S. Francisco Xavier and then, inexplicably, ends up dead.
The family members of the two women who died following their visits to the hospital have all pressed for answers. It is unclear whether they have received them.
Source material: LUSA/ SIC
