Dead People Are Not All Alike

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I read the sad story of Liz Page this morning. Liz got the call from the hospital that no one wants to receive. The call that said that her mother had passed away. Liz went to the hospital where she was taken to say her goodbyes to her deceased loved one. She kissed the old lady on the head, said goodbye, and went home to make funeral arrangements. Then she got another call. The hospital told her they had made a mistake. Her mother wasn’t dead at all. The body she kissed goodbye belonged to some other dead woman. I agree that this was a traumatic event. It’s always traumatic to be told a loved one has died. It would be traumatic to receive that phone call, traumatic to be taken to see your mother’s body and traumatic all the way up to the point where you look at the body and say “That is NOT my mother!” Except, Liz didn’t say that. She didn’t notice that it wasn’t her mother. Now, I have worked in a nursing home and maybe to someone who doesn’t know these people, all old people look alike. But to someone who knows them, dead or alive they are not indistinguishable. Liz is telling her story to highlight the trauma of hospitals making mistakes. And again, I agree that there is no excuse for a hospital mis-identifying a corpse. But, on the other hand, there’s not really much of an excuse for a daughter doing the same when the dead person is supposedly her mother. On this one, I think the hospital and Liz are even.