N.B. couple says hospital mistakenly identified husband as dead

A Moncton hospital mistakenly said a 71-year-old man was dead when he was still alive.

A routine prescription pickup turned into several stressful days for New Brunswick couple Nadine Gwinn and Albert Arsenault.

“On Sunday I went to Costco to pick-up mine and Albert’s prescriptions,” said Gwinn. “They must have seen that he was marked deceased. Then there was four or five of them standing there and they come and say, ‘Well, we can’t give you [any] medication, Albert is deceased.”

This news came as a complete shock to Gwinn, who said she instantly started crying at the pharmacy, fearing the worst.

“I was devastated because right away I thought something happened in the 15 minutes that I was gone from the house and then they come and told me that, ‘No, he’s been dead since the 24th of February,’” she said.

She was able to confirm Arsenault was right where she left him, in a lawn chair enjoying some fresh air, but in order to get his medication, she had to drive back home, pick him up, and bring him back to Moncton to prove he was alive with identification.

She says this all started after Arsenault went to the Moncton Hospital on Feb. 23 at 10 p.m. for chest, jaw and neck pains.

He was released the next day in the afternoon after being told nothing was wrong.

“They’ve got to get a better system than they’ve got there because they’re going to have more problems,” said Arsenault. “It’s not right to do stuff like that, out of the blue like that. No notice, no nothing.”

Gwinn says she called the city hospital on Monday and was told, after a few hours, the issue had been fixed, but she wasn’t given an explanation or even an apology.

On Tuesday, she made the trip back to Costco again to finally pick up Arsenault’s medication, which is needed after a heart attack last summer and a triple bypass surgery in September.

“I still have calls to make,” she said. “I did check his CRA and everything, we’ve got all that checked, there’s no red flags there as of right now. Actually, Costco can see his Medicare card is active there, but I was told I should call just to verify that it is still active because if he needs an ambulance or he needs to go somewhere, he needs to have his Medicare. So I’m hoping that everything is not in danger, but still a lot of calls to make yet.”

She just doesn’t understand how a mistake like this was even made.

“I’m still overwhelmed. I’m still hurt for somebody to say that somebody is deceased and not acknowledge that they said it or checked it off in the box or whatever,” she said. “The last two days I’m listening just to make sure that he’s breathing.”

At this point, she says she is looking into a lawyer and would really appreciate an apology, explanation and some type of compensation for the extra gas and time that was spent trying to fix this issue.

CTV News Atlantic reached out to Horizon Health Network for more details, but the Health Authority did not provide any information by deadline.

“I’ve had enough of a hard time the last six months, I’d like to be able to relax a little bit, you know what I mean?” said Arsenault. “I’m glad it wasn’t true. My birdhouse is waiting for me, but I’m not ready to move in yet.”

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