London Woman, 84, spends 12 hours trapped in a hospital toilet

This 84-year-old woman was left trapped in a hospital toilet for 12 hours while staff believed she had been discharged, her son says.

Janina Borasinski spent Saturday night stuck in a bathroom at Croydon University Hospital as frantic efforts were made to locate her.

Her son, Chris Borasinski, 62, told the Evening Standard: “What concerns me is that the way the system works, it could happen again – and it’s usually to vulnerable people."

Mr Borasinski flew into London from Germany, where he lives, on Saturday after hearing his mother had been urgently admitted to hospital that morning.

When he arrived at the hospital at 9.15pm, staff told him his mother had been discharged just over an hour beforehand.

However, when he reached her home, about two miles away, Mrs Borasinski was not there.
By midnight, hospital staff had still been unable to locate her, so Mr Borasinski – who was “worried sick” – called police and filed a missing persons report.

At about 8am he received a call to say she had been found. Mrs Borasinski had been discovered in a toilet by a cleaner.“

Because of her condition, [my mother] was too weak to get herself up and out of the door or to hit the alarm button,” said Mr Borasinski.

Mrs Borasinski was found “in a poor state, dehydrated, she hadn’t eaten for 24 hours, and she was somewhat discombobulated”, he added.

“What worries me most is that a vulnerable person had been discharged when she clearly wasn’t in a fit state to leave, and that they can mislay or lose a transport,” he said.

Officials at the hospital have since launched an investigation.“
We are very sorry for the distress Mrs Borasinski experienced over the weekend and we have apologised to her and her family,” said a spokesperson for Croydon Health Services NHS Trust.“