- Susan Johnson, 62, said she went to the hospital but was told she had died.
- Hospital records show she died four months ago.
- Johnson still doesn’t know why or how the mistake, which has now been corrected, happened.
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The woman learned that the death had been registered when she went to the hospital.
Susan Johnson, 62, went to Bridlington Hospital in Yorkshire, England, for a test in March 2023. But when she arrived, her staff told her that her records indicated that she had been dead for four months. BBC report.
“I gave them the letter, and their first words were, ‘Oh, you’re dead.’ I said, ‘I’m sorry?’ I was shocked,” Johnson said.
Ms Johnson told the BBC the experience left her “shaking like a leaf”.
She contacted her GP, Scarborough Medical Group, who told the BBC the mistake had been corrected.
But when Ms Johnson called the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), the British government department responsible for welfare payments, she said the person on the phone told her: “On the computer, you’re dead.” I remembered.
NHS England told Business Insider it was “aware of an issue where private death registrations were incorrectly recorded against patients’ medical records.”
In a statement, the company said: “This matter was removed within 24 hours of being reported to us in March 2023 and the patient was re-registered by their GP. We asked the patient to contact us directly for further clarification. I encourage you to contact me.”
However, NHS England would not have notified other government departments such as the DWP of the death.
Scarborough Medical Group had not responded to Business Insider’s request for comment at the time of publication.
Johnson still doesn’t know how she was registered as deceased.
“We need to find out why, by whom and how it happened. The person who pushed the button should not have a job anywhere,” she told the BBC.