To think hospital should tell me what ward my family member is on?

[pinkyperkyyy]

My cousin is 44,he is a alcoholic and has isolated himself the last two years.
We used to be quite close but since he has started drinking he has dropped contact.
His mum,dad and brother are dead and he never married/had kids.
Today I found out (from someone in the street) he had a seizure and a brain bleed and was in hospital.
Obviously I wanted to check on him so I wanted to find out what ward he was on (massive hospital )
I called the admissions and explained and gave his full name.
She replied "date of birth"
I told her I didn't know this but I know he is late 40s.
She said I needed to give the exact date.
Then said "ok address"
I gave her the street name and said I didn't know the number (he only moved last year )
She said unless I told her house number she couldn't give me the ward.
I said that it was ridiculous,I didn't want any info about his condition just the ward so I could go up.
Anyway she wouldn't tell me as she said there might be 5 people with the same name ??
I said "what 5 people around late 40s ,same name and living in the same street"
Aibu to think it's ridiculous

Yes, YABU. If you don’t know someone’s DOB or address I can fully understand why they wouldn’t give you further information

But you could have been anybody phoning up. They have to be very careful about the information they give out.

She shouldn’t be telling you anything, whether you know his details are not. Even the fact he’s in hospital is confidential information.

How would they know you are definitely a family member and that he would give permission for you to be given details of his condition?

Blimey. Yes Yabu. How can you not know how old he is and his birthday?

It was to visit him in hospital.
I wasn't asking for any medical information.

Yabu you could be anyone who knows his name. You just wanted to go up? I’d be REALLY pissed off if I was in hospital and they let somone come to my bed unannounced. Especially if it turns out I had, for whatever reason, decided I didn’t want to speak to that person and hadn’t done so for 2 years.

I wasn't asking for details of any condition.
I was asking what ward he was on so I could visit.

Can you look his birthday up on Facebook perhaps?

That does sound harsh.
I understand the need to make sure it's a relative, and that there are processes in place, but you make a good point about it being unlikely that they have two people with the same name of similar age from the same street.
Personally, i'd turn up to the hospital and have a face to face conversation with the reception people rather than try and get this information over the phone - people are often more compassionate when you're standing there in front of them.

Yeah I did want to just go up.
Considering he is ill in hospital with no family.
I wanted to let him know someone still cared about him.

I think YABU. It's right and proper that appropriate safeguards are in place.

you're missing the point, why should you be able to visit him if you cant provide the required details - you might be his stalker?

YABU. They can’t give out that information and surely if you were close you would know the date of birth? He may have requested no visitors, so even if you were told the ward you may not be allowed to see him

But what if in this exact situation, the patient doesn’t actually want the visitor to visit them? By your standards the reception staff should just let any stalker/abuser/journalist etc visit their victims on the off chance they’re a family member

YABU

She may have not even been able to search without an exact date of birth.

And she was right not to give out info (the ward he’s on counts as info) to any old fandom who calls up and doesn’t even have personal details.

You failed 2 security questions essentially

YABU

YABU. It would be a breach of patient confidentiality for the hospital to disclose this information. You could be anyone.

They may have asked your cousin if there was anyone he wanted contacting and he has said no (assuming he is able to do so / depending on his condition).

How do you not know his birthday?!

I was very surprised recently when I called the hospital my husband was having surgery in for an update as it had been bloody ages and I was panicking and the switchboard told me everything I wanted to know just because I said I was his wife. No request for DOB or address or anything. Weird.

Going by the rules, hospital staff aren’t even allowed to confirm or acknowledge that a patient is in hospital. You wouldn’t have got details out of me if you didn’t even know his date of birth.

I've rang this hospital many times and they've always just asked for a name.
I knew his address just not the house number.
I'm sure a lot of people wouldn't know a cousins date of birth surely.
Brothers /sister yes but cousin not as much

You could have asked for them to give him a message with your number. There not even supposed to confirm wether he is a patient or not for confidentiality reasons. You could be anyone with any intention

To be fair, I don’t know any of my cousins birthdays, apart from one as she was born on Christmas Day. No idea what year though.

But I agree with the hospital.

YABU. They can’t assume you are family if you don’t know his DOB or address. They absolutely did the right thing.