A Baltimore hospital said it was investigating Wednesday after video posted online showed an apparently incapacitated woman put out in the cold wearing nothing but a hospital gown.
The man who posted the video said it was just 30 degrees out, and challenged hospital staff.
“So y’all are just going to leave this lady out here with no clothes on?” he said in the video. “That is not okay.”
The responses of security staff are not audible in the video, but one appeared to say: “She was medically cleared.”
A spokeswoman for the hospital verified its authenticity and said it was filmed Tuesday.
“We share the shock and disappointment of many who have viewed the video showing the discharge of a patient from the Emergency Department of UMMC Midtown the night of January 9,” Lisa Clough, a spokeswoman for the hospital, said in a statement. “This unfortunate event is not representative of our patient-centered mission.”
No further information about the patient or her care was available, Clough said.
Clough added: “While there are many circumstances of this patient’s case that we cannot address publicly, in the end we clearly failed to fulfill our mission with this patient, no matter the circumstances of her case or the quality of the clinical care we provided in the hospital (which is not depicted in the video). We are taking this matter very seriously, conducting a thorough review, and are evaluating the appropriate response, including the possibility of personnel action.”
The man who posted the video, identified on Facebook as Imamu Baraka, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“Is this what healthcare in Baltimore City has come to?” he wrote on Facebook. “You can do better. You must do better.”
