Long Beach, CA-based College Medical Center dumped a woman with dementia outside the locked senior living community where she lived in the middle of the night, a daughter’s negligence complaint alleges.
Savina Zerbi had been taken to the hospital earlier in the day because she’d had a mental breakdown and threatened to hurt herself at the Regency Palms Senior Living facility, according to her daughter, Costanza Zerbi.
But after treatment, she was released from the hospital and put in a cab. The driver apparently left the mother at the senior living facility’s entrance.
“I’m pretty outraged,” Zerbi said. “She could have been killed or kidnapped.”
State health department officials had not commented on the complaint as of press time. The hospital released a statement stating that the 84-year-old patient turned down help with transportation and “insisted that she be taken to her place of residence via public transportation.” The hospital also said it plans to meet with the patient’s family to “discuss this matter in further detail,” the statement added.
