A woman thought her husband had died when she wrongly received a call from bereavement counsellors while he was in hospital.
Gary Furzer, 57, was recovering from surgery to have his right kidney removed when his wife Carole-Anne, also 57, had to take a highly distressing call from Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital’s bereavement counselling team after a mix-up over names.
Mrs Furzer, who was told that nurses were just finishing up some paperwork, said she screamed at the caller and had to wait five minutes while the hospital checked whether her husband was in fact alive.
The hospital has apologised, saying the nurse had been told the name of a deceased person in a ‘busy, noisy’ intensive care unit, but Mrs Furzer said she has had nightmares since the mix-up just before Christmas.
After Gary Furzer (left), 57, had surgery to have a kidney removed removed, his wife Carole-Anne, also 57, received a highly distressing call from a bereavement counselling team
Mr Furzer, a bus driver for Stagecoach, had been diagnosed with kidney cancer and was admitted to the hospital on December 15 to have his right kidney removed.
The surgery went well and he was moved to the Dart Ward for recovery, but a mix-up with names in a ‘busy and noisy’ intensive care unit meant his wife received a call from the hospital’s bereavement counselling team.
Mrs Furzer, who works at bookmaker William Hill, said: ‘I had a phone call from a private number. It was a woman who said that she was calling from the hospital bereavement counselling team and that the nurses were just finishing up some paperwork.
‘I started screaming at her and I said “Are you trying to tell me that my husband is dead?”. She hesitated and said the name of a gentleman and that he’d passed away through the night.
‘I started screaming again and I told her that my husband is called Gary. I said to her “is my husband alive or not?”. She said that she didn’t know and that she would have to phone the Dart Ward to find out and get back to me as soon as she could.’
Mrs Furzer said the following five minutes felt much longer and said she felt ‘hysterical’ as she paced up and down with her phone in her hand.
She said: ‘Eventually after five minutes she phoned me back and said that she’d spoken to the sister on the Dart Ward and that my husband was okay.
‘I phoned the Dart Ward myself and spoke to the sister to ask her if she could get Gary to call me. Until she did, I couldn’t be sure that he was alright.’
Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital (pictured) has apologised for the mix-up but Mrs Furzer said she had nightmares after she thought a nurse was informing her of her husband’s death
Mr Furzer said he saw the funny side of the situation at first, but after thinking about how his wife must have felt he realised the seriousness of the mistake.
He said: ‘I was lying in the hospital, and the nurse came over. She asked me to ring me wife, and that she thinks that I was dead! I rang her and said “I’m still alive!”.
‘When the nurse told me, I could see the funny side of it, it was just so ridiculous.
‘But then I started thinking about it, it was only funny to me because I knew that I was alive but it was a completely different story for Carole-Anne.’
Suzanne Tracey, RD&E chief executive, said: ‘We are extremely sorry for the errors that led to Mrs Furzer receiving such a distressing telephone call and for the upset this caused.
‘We have investigated the matter fully and set this out in a letter to Mrs Furzer and apologised unreservedly.
‘Furthermore we have taken steps to minimise the risk of such an incident happening again.
‘These include reviewing the procedure for sending case notes to the bereavement office and highlighting to staff the need to cross-check patient information with care before giving out details.
‘We are very grateful to Mrs Furzer for taking the time to draw this to our attention and if she or her husband Gary have any further concerns, they can contact our Patient Advice and Liaison Service on 01392 402093 or email rde-tr.PALS@nhs.net.’
Mrs Furzer said she had kept waking up at 3am while her husband was still at the hospital and had been having nightmares about the scary phone call.
She said: ‘I know they’re busy, but more checking must be done.
‘When the lady phoned, she asked me if my husband was in the hospital, and I told her that he was and that he’d had a kidney removed.
‘For all I knew, complications could have set in after the surgery and he could have died.’