Maggie and I were working in Interventional Radiology one day until 7:30 pm. Maggie had been there since 7 am and had one remaining patient. The patient had a port-a-cath insertion and was slightly demented and Maggie had been waiting for a family member to return for discharge. She made several phone calls to the number on file and finally got through to the patient's niece who said she was on her way. There was a complication and we were waiting for the doctor to return to the hospital to again get the patient ready for discharge. When the niece finally arrived she stated she would not wait for her aunt to be readied to go and simply left the hospital.
At this point, the doctor arrived, re-stitched the patient and she was ready to go home but now she had no way of getting home. To shorten this story, we needed to call the Nursing Supervisors to advise us of what our options were when a patient is essentially abandoned in the hospital. The options were to admit the patient overnight, ambulance transport or taxi. We could not send this patient by taxi without someone with her; also it seemed to be overkill keeping this patient overnight.
Maggie ended up taking the patient home via the taxi service after her shift ended. The picture that will stay with me is of Maggie walking back to the desk with her purse and a birthday cake box. You see, it happened to be Maggie's Anniversary and birthday that day and she would have the taxi take her to her car, which was parked off-site after she safely brought the patient to her house. This is a true DAISY moment!