'They felt it was easy to shuffle her off and away,' says daughter at inquest into death of mom

Dana Brenan speaks to media about the inquest which began May 11, 2015 into her 68-year-old mother's death.

An inquest is underway into the death of a Winnipeg senior who collapsed after being sent home from hospital.

Heather Brenan was sent home in a taxi cab in the middle of a frigid night without her house keys on January 27, 2012. She collapsed on her doorstep and died in hospital the next day.

Dana Brenan has testified at an inquest that her 68-year-old mother was living alone with multiple medical problems.  The senior went to the emergency room on January 24, 2012 due to difficulty and pain while eating and long-term weight loss.

Bill Olson, lawyer for the health authority, told Brenan the medical consensus is her mother's death "could not have been predicted and, in all likelihood, would have occurred whether your mother was in hospital or not."

Brenan said she's not questioning how her mother died, but rather the care the senior received while in hospital.

"I think that her care was mismanaged," Brenan told the inquest.

She said because her mother had no family here, she felt her mother didn't receive proper treatment.

"They felt it was easy to shuffle her off and away,” said Brenan, who was living in London, England at the time of her mother's death.

Brenan wants to know why her mother was never admitted to hospital, and sent home in a taxi without her keys.

“I don’t want patient flow to be the primary consideration. I want patient care to be the consideration,” said Brenan of the inquest.

Brenan also said the hospital did not try to resuscitate her mother after she collapsed. Brenan said she hoped to see her mother alive after she flew in from England but never got the chance.

“Nobody should see their mother cold and dead with tubes coming out of their nose,” she said.

The inquest will hear from 24 witnesses including the doctors and nurses who watched over Heather Brenan.

Months after she died, two other patients were sent home in taxis from a different hospital and died on their doorsteps.

Manitoba's chief medical examiner called the inquest to look into Brenan's death and to "examine hospital policy regarding the discharge of patients at night, particularly those who are elderly, frail, and who reside alone."

- with files from The Canadian Press