When a patient is in a hospital bed, who is guarding the wallet in the bedside drawer? The question is hanging behind an accusation in Hillsborough County, Florida where police state that a hospital worker stole the wallet of a 94-year-old patient and loaded over $500 of charges on the patient using the patient’s credit cards the same day. The defendant is a 28-year-old patient care technician at HCA Florida Brandon Hospital, and the sheriff office indicated that it had been warned out by issuing a warrant, and the employee had surrendered at the Orient Road Jail.
Although it lacks a courtroom verdict, the accusation is an indication of a larger wellbeing challenge that families and elderly patients do not anticipate addressing when handling tests, drugs and discharge arrangements: personal possessions and financial security within care facilities. The world of a person is reduced to a room in a hospital because of the call button and a few things that sustain the normal life. In case that small number has a credit card, an ID or a phone that has stored information about payment methods, the material effects of any loss can trail into canceled bank accounts, new cards and a dispute charge and anxiety that long outlasts a medical issue that is cured.
Fall prevention, infection control and medication safety are all part of the routine in hospitals. It is therefore true that possessions can be a lesser issue until the thing that is lost is not a sweatshirt but a wallet. It was in an Florida allegation that the sheriff office posted a surveillance picture that it claimed to depict a masked man forcing a cart with several shopping bags out of a Target store. According to the investigators, the alleged theft was noticed by the hospital and the law enforcement was notified and collaborated with the detectives to develop the case. Clinical care may not be the only factor to determine the feeling of security of a patient.
It is not a new idea in health systems that the lost property may prove to be emotionally disturbing even in the absence of a crime. An advocate of patients and family at the University of Vermont Medical Center gave a report where a treasured stuffed bear was lost with the hospital bedding, causing anxiety and sadness to the family only to be found later on. The systems that contribute to the prevention of accidental loss can also be used to minimize the possibilities of intentional abuse, especially in cases when patients are aged, sedated, confused, or just committed to recovering.
Practical safeguards are often unsophisticated and uniform: plain guidelines on how to record valuables at admission, what to expect in terms of storage, and what to expect in the way of communication with patients and family. Other facilities have electronic records that are used to record their belongings and also to trace their movements across units to prevent loss during transfers. The training is important like the checklist, the staff should be aware of how they should label, store and return property and they should have the workplace culture where reporting of discrepancies is normal but not an embarrassment.
In the case of the older adults, stakes are higher since stealing a wallet may turn out to be identity theft. According to federal consumer-protection guidance, one of the typical patterns in elder financial exploitation is called “caretaker fraud,” along with such warning signs as unexplained or unusual purchases and sudden account alterations. The identical source highlights short-term measures that will restrict harm, encompassing reporting to the bank of the older adult, as well as putting a fraud report on a credit score.
In case of families the most feasible solution usually begins prior to the admission: sending nonessential valuables home, maintaining a bare record of what should remain at the bedside, and making a request: what becomes of the wallet, since it may have to stay with the patient. In the case of hospitals, the so-called Florida case reminds them that trust is an element of care and the trust includes those little, yet mundane things that patients cannot afford losing.
