Annapolis Valley hospital criticized after patient walks 15 km in socks

A Progressive Conservative MLA is accusing a hospital in his Annapolis Valley constituency of "passing the buck" after a mental health patient was discharged without his family's knowledge and then walked more than 15 kilometres in socks toward his home.

John Lohr, who represents Kings North, said the Valley Regional Hospital discharged a man at around 7 a.m. on Saturday. His family was not notified and he started walking with no footwear.

Murray Salsman, who lives in Grafton, N.S., found the man wandering around his yard late Saturday morning looking "exhausted and hungry" after walking for nearly four hours.

Salsman said he was told the man's wife took him to the emergency room the night before in an ambulance for a mental health concern.

Police said the man's wife only found out about his release by calling the hospital the next morning. She then contacted local police to be on the lookout for her husband.

"She was concerned for one, [about] his well-being and his state of mind," said Acting Chief Kenneth Reade of the Kentville Police Service. "And two, for the fact he had no shoes."

After speaking with the man and offering him a drink of water, Salsman was able to look up his family's contact information. He eventually turned the man over to his grateful parents.

Lohr was notified of the incident by the Good Samaritan.

The MLA said he spoke to Valley Regional Hospital's director of mental health, John Campbell, who blamed the emergency ward's intake process rather than his own department.

"What he suggested to me was the fault lay with the emerg doctor, which doesn't add up to me," Lohr told Maritime Noon on Wednesday. "They need to take a little more care in how this person leaves the unit."

The politician also tried to contact hospital administrators, but he said they offered little explanation, citing patient confidentiality. They were unavailable to comment on Wednesday.

Salsman thinks even if the man was well enough to be out on his own, the hospital needed to show a higher degree of care.

"It's not something I like to see and I'm not going to give up on this until something's done," he said.