A woman was left shocked when she turned up to a hospital scan only to be told by staff that her records showed that she was already ‘’dead.''
Susan Johnson from Scarborough
was left 'shaking by a leaf' after staff at the Bridlington Hospital in
Yorkshire told her their records showed she'd been dead for four months.
The incident left Susan, 62, a
retired housekeeper, baffled that her husband Bob needed to bring her a strong coffee
to help calm her nerves.
The mother-of-two told BBC
News: 'I gave them my letter and their first words were, "ooh you're
dead".
'I said, "pardon?". I
was in shock.
'Then they put something on the
computer so I could have the scan and then they just said, "bye" and
that's it.'
It is unclear how the mistake
happened as when Susan contacted her GP, they told her that the mistake had
been fixed.
However, when she contacted the
Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), the call handler told her she was still
marked as already dead on the system.
'On the computer you're dead,'
she was told. Susan then informed her she couldn't be dead as she was on the
phone and talking.
The error meant that Susan's
carer's allowance for looking after her disabled husband Bob briefly stopped,
though this has now been fixed.
She said she shut down
completely after the news and said there was nobody to talk to about the
mistake.
Scarborough Medical Group told
the BBC they'd received an electronic instruction about the 'death' from Primary
Care Support England (PCSE).
Susan is concentrating on her
hobbies of gardening and knitting as she recovers from the shock.
An NHS spokesperson said: 'We
are aware of an issue involving a civil death registration being incorrectly
recorded against a patient’s medical record.
'This was removed within 24
hours of it being reported to us in March 2023 and the patient was re-registered
by their GP.
'We would encourage the patient
to contact us directly so we can explain further.'
Post a Comment