A Kelowna, B.C., man recovering from dialysis was forced to ride an electric scooter home after a mixup left him stranded without transportation on Thursday.
Dyson Durocher-Galloway, 23, lives with kidney failure and receives regular dialysis treatments at Kelowna General Hospital. Normally, his transportation costs are fully covered through the Ministry of Health. But after his treatment last Thursday, the cab he was expecting never arrived.
“For Kelowna Cabs to deny my son a ride the way they did is really frustrating,” said his mother, Amanda Durocher.
Dyson says the dispatcher refused to send a cab because he couldn’t provide an account number — something he was never given.
“The dispatcher just wouldn’t send one because I didn’t have my account number,” said Durocher-Galloway. “But I was never told one at the start. It was all set up by the Ministry, and I was told to call them and say ‘preauthorized rides’ and it would be covered and ready for me.”
With no cab and no backup plan, Durocher-Galloway was forced to make the journey home on a Lime e-scooter.
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“It just felt like it went on forever, and each road felt longer and longer,” he said.
The ride was made worse after a dialysis treatment, which often leaves patients physically exhausted.
“You just kind of feel drained and empty after all of it,” Durocher-Galloway added.
Durocher was shocked when her son arrived home on a scooter.
“I was sitting on the front steps and he rolled up on one of the Lime scooters and I was like, ‘Whoa, whoa, what is going on here?’ I immediately called Kelowna Cabs,” she said.
Kelowna Cabs told Global News the incident was caused by a rare system outage that prevented account-based rides from being dispatched.
“From my understanding, the dispatcher tried to explain to him that our systems were down,” said Roy Paulson with Kelowna Cabs. “We could not do any account trips… because we have to be accountable for every account.”
The company says it attempted to reach out to the family afterward but did not hear back. They also admitted contingency plans were not in place, but say they are open to improvements.
“Now that it’s being brought into the light, I don’t think there would be a problem with having a second system in place,” said Paulson.
Dyson’s mother hopes this experience leads to better protocols so no other patient is put in a similar position.
“Maybe for them to implement some procedures or protocols in a situation like this,” Durocher said.
Global News has reached out to the Ministry of Health for comment.
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