Hospital Patient Gets Escorted Out After Asking for Food to Help with His Low Blood Sugar

Delson Stokes is a well-known Noongar-Wongutha man, a musician and a member of Yabu band. However, that didn’t stop hospital staff at Perth’s Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital from allegedly discriminating against him while he was a patient in their care.

46-year-old Stokes, who has diabetes, says he was in the hospital for cataract surgery and was in post-operative care when he noticed that it felt like his blood sugar was getting low. He asked the staff for a sandwich and a coffee, but the nurse on duty “talked down to [him] straight away” and told him he’d have to wait for the breakfast trolley to visit his room before he could get something to eat.

Because Mr. Stokes has diabetes, he felt like his request shouldn’t have been denied, because his health might depend on it. He continued to ask for something to eat, but each time, he says, the nurses gave only rude responses and never got him any food.

“This is a multibillion-dollar organisation,” Stokes says. “You’d think they could give you a sandwich.”

After waiting a while longer, Stokes says he saw a group of six to eight security guards walking around the ward. It didn’t take long for him to realize that they’d come to escort him out of the hospital.

Stokes had not had a post-surgery checkup by a doctor, nor had the senior nurse asked for his side of the story. A nurse came to Stokes’s room and allegedly said, “You’re out of here, you’re discharged.”

The security guards walked Stokes out of the hospital at about 5:30 a.m. According to him, however, some of them mentioned that they couldn’t believe what they’d been asked to do.

Stokes was given his medication outside the hospital 20 minutes after his escort. “I felt that I was looked upon as not human,” he says.

Stokes says he believes his treatment at Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital was racially motivated. Many other First Nations people have come forward and said that they experienced similar discrimination in the healthcare system.

A spokesperson for North Metropolitan Health Service has denied Stokes’s claim, saying the hospital system “does not tolerate anti-social and aggressive behavior towards staff under any circumstances” and that this was the reason for his removal from the premises.

“Mr. Stokes was discharged at 7:40 am Saturday, 3/7/2021, following medical advice by the treating medical team. He received professional care throughout his hospital stay as well as appropriate nutrition in line with his condition,” the spokesperson says.

“As is standard practice, Mr. Stokes was provided follow-up referrals, medication, and travel assistance upon his discharge and was escorted from the hospital by two security officers.”