Peter Rogers of Williams Mead, Bartestree asks why turn old man away at hospital? (From Hereford Times)

Peter Rogers of Williams Mead, Bartestree asks why turn old man away at hospital?

8:00am Tuesday 21st August 2012 in Letters

I WAS checking out our trolley at Morrison’s on Sunday morning.

The cashier’s thoughts were elsewhere and I commented that he must have had a good Saturday night out.

His response was that he was angry. I asked him why.

Reluctantly, he said that, while going home on Saturday evening, he had found a lost and confused elderly man wandering in the road.

He couldn’t say where he lived. So the young man took him to Hereford County Hospital.

On arrival, the young man said to reception that he didn’t know whether he had reacted properly.

He was told that he was wrong and should have left the elderly man alone for the police to find him.

These are the bare bones and I know nothing about the circumstances.

Whatever they were, the thing that hit me hardest was that this young man, who should be quietly proud of his civic action, was still seething the following morning.

In the seconds left, I thanked him on behalf of all Hereford’s citizens, paid and left with my wife.

I am in my 80s and, if I were to be caught in the same situation, I hope that I would be quietly taken by somebody to the closest safe and secure place.

If I worked at Morrisons and, on my way home, found someone outside in the same situation, this would be the hospital (if I knew no better).

I am left with so many questions without answers.

PETER ROGERS, Williams Mead, Bartestree.