Nursing home notifies wrong family about loved one's death

A nursing home in The Woodlands is apologizing to two separate families after an awful mix up, when they called the wrong family saying their loved one passed away. 

Davida Jones received the call at 5 a.m. Saturday. She started to panic, calling other family members with the bad news. Davida was about two hours out of town so her nieces arrived at Park Manor of The Woodlands first. They gave their grandmother’s name, date of birth, and demanded to see her body. Davida tells us this was when they learned of the mix up.

"In this case they only checked for the name, and it just so happened to be one was African-American and one was white and it was a pretty obvious difference...finally the CNA jumped in front and said 'honey is your grandmother black or white?' And my niece said 'my grandmother is white'. And she turned to the nurses and said 'you called the wrong family,” Davida says. All because the women shared the same name.

Davida says this should never happen at a medical facility.

“One thing is, and I’m not sure why, but they don’t wear armbands, like every other hospital like every other emergency room. They don’t have armbands to identify these patients,“ Davida says.

Thankfully, Davida’s mom is well, recovering from spinal surgery but upset her family and the other family were put in this position.

“I just don’t know how it happened. How it could happen, and saying it was a mistake is not an answer,” says her mother.

“We sincerely regret the error which was made by one of our staff on Saturday, September 1st. We have contacted and met with the family who was wrongly informed of their loved one’s passing and apologized for the unfortunate error in notification. We hope the family will forgive us for this sad mistake and understand the staff member acted in haste without any intent of malice. We will continue to provide compassionate care for their loved one and all of the residents whose families have entrusted us with their care.”

Davida is expecting her mother to be discharged in about two weeks, and she tells us that she still hasn’t been contacted by the administration of the facility. She is hoping her story will make medical staff aware of correctly identifying patients.