Florida Hospital Sues Squatter Patient After She's Still There 5 Months Past Discharge Date

In recent years, we've heard and read a lot about the issue of squatters - renters who refuse to leave a property when evicted, or even random people moving into an empty house, or even a house where the owner has gone on vacation, and claiming legal residence - and, again, refusing to leave. That's a real problem, and the various states are dealing with it, one way or another.

This, though, is a new twist on the whole squatter problem. Why? Because this one is squatting in a hospital room, and has been for nearly six months.

The patient in Room 373 refuses to leave.

Tallahassee Memorial Healthcare earlier this month sued the patient, saying she has refused to depart her hospital room since being discharged last October. The hospital also has asked a state judge in Tallahassee for an injunction ordering the patient to vacate the hospital room and authorizing the county sheriff’s office to assist if necessary.

The hospital said that resources have been diverted from helping other patients because of her occupation of the room.

Well, that last statement seems rather obvious. While it doesn't say why the woman initially came to the hospital, or why she was admitted, she's clearly overstayed her welcome. What's worse, it seems she's occupying a room in an acute care unit. That's pretty serious business.

“Defendant’s continued occupancy prevents use of the bed for patients needing acute care,” the hospital said in the lawsuit.

According to the lawsuit, the woman was admitted to the hospital for medical treatment and a formal discharge order was issued Oct. 6 after it was determined that she no longer needed acute care services. The hospital has repeatedly made efforts to coordinate her departure with family members and offered transportation to obtain necessary identification, the lawsuit said.

So, the lawsuit was probably a good idea. 

Still, one wonders if the Tallahassee Memorial may have tried some other tactics to convince the non-patient to vacate. For example:

First: Turn off the cable television. Most of the hospital rooms I've seen lately have a television set and a variety of programming choices. It seems likely this one does. Turn it off. Make the non-patient deal with whatever she can find on her smartphone, presuming she has one - and she almost certainly does. Which brings up another idea:

Second: Turn off all the outlets in the room that are not powering vital medical equipment. If this non-patient has been discharged, and last October at that, it's a near-certainty she's not on any life-sustaining machinery. Make sure she can't charge that smartphone. Let boredom reign.

Third: Stop feeding her. She's been discharged, right? It would seem that Tallahassee Memorial is under no real obligation to keep bringing her meal trays.

Now, there is almost certainly legal pettifoggery that is preventing the hospital from taking such drastic steps (are they really that drastic? I don't think they are really that drastic.) But hopefully, soon, this will go to a court, where the non-patient is proposing to prove the old legal maxim about having an idiot for a client. If there's any sanity in the world - a proposition with higher odds in Florida than in some other places - the judge presiding will simply say, "Are you kidding me? You're evicted. Get out, or deputy sheriffs will throw you out."