A Nova Scotia senior and her family are upset with how she was treated at a Dartmouth hospital, after she was moved into a hallway without easy access to a bathroom and in front of an emergency exit.
Tammy Beaton says her mother, 73-year-old Betty Hennigar, hasn’t been the same since she was admitted to Dartmouth General Hospital.
“I’m not sure if it’s because of all of the stress of being in there,” said Beaton.
Hennigar was admitted on May 25 and spent three weeks as an in-patient, following a broken leg after a hip replacement.
During her time there, Beaton says her mother felt humiliated and mistreated.
For the last two days of her stay, Beaton says Hennigar’s bed was given to another patient, and she was moved into the hallway.
“If she needed to go to the washroom, she would push the call button, and she would wait an hour or more for them to come in,” said Beaton.
“In the meantime she would end up peeing herself waiting for them.”
Get weekly health news
Receive the latest medical news and health information delivered to you every Sunday.
During the times her mother was able to walk to the bathroom herself, she would have to enter another patient’s room.
“Honestly, I don’t have a huge problem with somebody having to go in a hallway overnight. But that person should be able to at least be able to walk to get to a washroom and not be humiliated by walking down the hallway peeing because they can’t get around well,” said Beaton.
In addition to being concerned seniors aren’t being treated with sensitivity, she’s alarmed because the position of her mother’s bed was a safety hazard for everyone else in the hospital.
“I would also like to see them not block fire escapes. If there was a major fire, then what would happen?” she said.
While Hennigar is now out of the hospital, she says the experience has left her with nightmares.
“I never want to go back there again, I never want to go back there again. There were nurses that were nice, and there were nurses that were not nice,” she said.
A spokesperson for Nova Scotia Health says they regret Hennigar and her family had a negative experience, noting Dartmouth General has been over-capacity.
“Sometimes hospitals are over capacity. This means we have more patients who need care, than the number of beds on our inpatient units,” wrote spokesperson, Keith Corcoran, in an email.
“To help manage these pressures, we sometimes move patients who’ve already been admitted from emergency department beds into non-traditional care spaces. This might be an area like a hallway or a large room with other patients.”
He added that staff “do our best” to limit how long patients stay in non-traditional care spaces, and that safety is their top priority.
“When a bed becomes free, we give it first to patients who need more care or supervision. If someone can safely be looked after in a hallway, then the available bed is given to someone with more complex needs,” he wrote.
But Hennigar and her family would like to see change on how patients are treated. While they’ve reached out to their MLA, the Minister of Health and the premier about their experience, they’ve only received apologies — not assurances this won’t happen again.
“I don’t want to see elderly people treated that way in hospitals,” said Beaton.
“I wish she would have been treated a little bit better than she was. I wish they would have been more in tune with her needs.”
© 2025 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
