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Elderly Man Wearing Only A Gown Abandoned In Hospital Lobby

STOWE (CBS) - A Stowe family is outraged that their father was "kicked out" of the hospital and made to wait in a lobby dressed only in a hospital gown to wait for a ride home.

Eighty-year-old Allen Ramsland says that's what happened to him after a 24 hour stay at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center to receive a stent following a heart attack.

"You gotta go, get dressed and go down the hall," Ramsland says a nurse abruptly told him. He had no clothes because he had been transferred from another hospital, and family members were expecting him to be released much later in the day.

Allen Ramsland
Allen Ramsland (WBZ-TV)

Ramsland wrapped himself in a couple of johnnies and his family says he was left in the lobby alone and confused until his daughter Sharlet, who lives an hour away, finally arrived. "Someone should have been with him, a nurse or anybody to watch over him. He can't walk, he's not mobile," said Sharlet Ramsland.

The family says his discharge papers were never signed, and the hospital didn't notify the family about his release as required by the CARE act, it was a panicked phone call from Allen. His daughter Libby, a nurse herself, calls the experience demeaning and unsafe. "What happened was bad enough, with the medications he's on if he had fallen it could have been deadly," Libby said.

Beth Israel
Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston (WBZ-TV)

The family is speaking out so it doesn't happy to another patient. "I think if you're 80 or 25 you don't want to sit in a lobby in a johnnie waiting for a ride. I think it was poor judgement," said Sharlet Ramsland.

The hospital released a statement:

"Federal and state privacy requirements prevent us from commenting on individual patients. We are deeply committed to providing the highest quality care and treating our patients with dignity and respect. We have a robust Patient Relations program in place, and we continuously recommit ourselves to delivering the highest quality care for our patients and their families. When concerns are raised, we do a full review and work to identify opportunities to enhance the patient experience."

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