Second Alberta family comes forward after patient discharged from hospital to hotel

A second Edmonton family is speaking out after a loved one was moved into not one but two different hotels after being discharged from hospital.

Jenalee Green said she was shocked when she learned her father, Glen, who had been a patient at the Royal Alexandra Hospital, had been taken to a Travelodge in Leduc on March 1. Glen Green, who has high care needs, had bounced between the Royal Alexandra and various shelters.

In Alberta, patients who no longer need hospital care and are being discharged are often given a list of agencies that can provide housing. 

Jenalee Green said one of the agencies her family was referred to was Contentment Social Services, which accepted her father for its "specialized housing program."

A letter dated Feb. 21 provided to Jenalee Green on letterhead from Contentment Social Services Foundation Inc. included an address for her father's care, but it wasn't transparent that the site was a Travelodge in Leduc.

After staying there for a few days, Glen Green was moved to a second hotel in Leduc, the Park Inn. Jenalee Green said she wasn't informed when this move happened and only learned about it from her father when he called her.

"How did this place come to be? Who vetted it?" Jenalee Green told CBC News in an interview Thursday.

"There's so many people that need placement. Agencies are popping up — some of them are good, some of them are bad — but they should be checked out."

Jenalee Green said her father gets some visits from health-care workers at the Park Inn, but is mainly left on his own.

"He just sits in there and watches TV and looks at the door," she said.

She said it's unclear how long her father will be at the hotel.

"We're trying to get him out, but waitlists are long," she said. "It's hard."

The story mirrors the experience of Blair Canniff, whose story CBC News detailed last week.

Canniff is recovering from a stroke, is paralyzed on his left side and uses a wheelchair.