It was just a small story on the 11 o'clock news the other night but it caught my attention. It appears that a 73 year old, non English speaking woman and Alzheimer patient was lost by Wheel-Trans. It appears that she got off the bus at a wrong stop. She was found this morning in relatively good health but I wouldn't want to comment on her mental distress.
The reason this story bothers me so much is that last year Wheel-Trans lost my mother once and stranded her numerous times for her trip home from physiotherapy. I got quite aggravated about it and had numerous discussions with Wheel-Trans about the situation. Since that time the service has improved tremendously, for Mom at least. They only send the big bus for her now instead of private taxis and the driver always walks her to the back door unless I am there to do that. These drivers have a list with the persons destination and I cant for the live of me understand how someone was allowed to get off at the wrong place. Every time my Mom leaves here I have moments of panic. She doesn't have Alzheimer's and carries a cell phone but because she is frail and has congestive heart failure, I worry.
Even though we haven't had an "event" in over six months I must say that after hearing about this poor woman who was lost I don't quite trust Wheel-Trans yet. They are charged with taking our most vulnerable citizens to where they need to go and they must do a better job of it.