The woman, Maria Dearmas, was a frequent patient at Metropolitan Hospital Center due to schizophrenia, depression, high-blood pressure, lower-back pain and dementia, according to the report. She was admitted to the hospital’s emergency room Nov. 1 for severe stomach pains.
A hospital administrator said Ms. Dearmas was discharged alone around 1:30 p.m. Due to her mental health problems she is rarely left alone, according to the report, so her daughter contacted the police when she found out Ms. Dearmas was missing.
After the local Spanish news channel ran a story on Ms. Dearmas, the hospital called her daughter with more information, according to the report. After she was missing for three days, the hospital found out Ms. Dearmas was discharged, walked through the marathon happening that day, and an hour and 20 minutes later collapsed. She was taken to NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center where it was determined an ulcer had created a perforation in Ms. Dearmas’ digestive tract and needed immediate surgery, according to the report.
According to her daughter, the physicians at Cornell performed the surgery because it was an emergency and they could not get family contacts from Metropolitan when they called, even though Ms. Dearmas is a frequent patient at Metropolitan, the report states.
Due to privacy regulations, the hospitals involved cannot explain why Ms. Dearmas’ children were not made aware of her whereabouts for three days, why she was discharged alone or if Metropolitan knew about her ulcer, according to the report.
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