It has to be one of the last things on a patient's mind while in the hospital—protecting their belongings. But sadly, police records show those who don't protect their belongings may be at risk.
From jewelry to credit cards, nothing is off limits for these hospital thieves, and law enforcement experts say this is an ongoing problem.
Ninety-one-year-old Betty Ames is so thankful to be alive. She spends most of her days giving back.
“Every day is a blessing. It’s like winning the lottery at my age,” she said.
So it’s no surprise she spent Christmas Eve last year serving dinner to the homeless, but on Christmas Day, Ames wasn’t feeling well.
“I went to the hospital because I was having problems with my stomach,” she said.
She was quickly taken in for treatment, changing into a hospital gown, placing all her belongings in a bag given to her by hospital staff, then undergoing multiple tests.
The next day, Ames and her daughter Sharon thought the chaos was over, but they were wrong. Adding insult to injury, all of Ames’s personal belongings were gone.
“There was my wallet, and in my wallet was my driver’s license, my credit card, my medical cards, which were hard for me to replace because it’s not easy for me to get around at my age,” she said.
And someone had already started using her credit card inside the hospital, spending $126.
“When I think about it, it still upsets me because I’m thinking, ‘Why would somebody do that when you’re in a hospital?’” Ames said.
Ames isn’t alone either.
Last November, Genia Carlson of Payson suffered a traumatic injury to her arm.
“The ladder or the tree scraped off my entire forearm,” she said.
Carlson was rushed to the hospital.
“It was my fourth day, and my phone was gone,” she said.
Her husband Jeff drove down from Payson to help resolve the matter.
“My husband went to talk to security, and they said, ‘It’s not our problem,’” Carlson said.
So they filed a police report, but they would never get Genia’s phone back.
“It didn’t feel good. I mean, I’m already completely immobile, not able to move my left arm at all, and I’m asleep with drugs, and someone comes in and takes advantage of that. And I just think it’s horrible!” she said.
The stories repeat themselves hundreds of times over.
Lori Crenshaw was another hospital patient who became a victim of theft. Three months after marrying her husband, she was hospitalized with gangrene.
She put her wedding ring in her wallet before she went to sleep, but she said when she woke up, it was nowhere to be found.
“It came from my mother-in-law. It was an engagement ring plus the wedding band,” Crenshaw said.
12 News looked into the number of thefts reported from 2013 through 2018 at four of the Valley’s biggest hospitals.
In total, 499 people—patients, visitors and hospital employees—were victimized. Those numbers only include items stolen from the hospitals and hospital parking lots that were reported to local police. They don’t include reports made to hospital security.
“Anybody in law enforcement knows that’s not the true number because there are people that don’t report it,” said retired Phoenix police officer David Kothe.
Kothe says the problem is not new.
“The question comes up then, ‘Well, who’s committing the thefts in the hospitals?’ And the answer to that, unfortunately, would be the people who have the ability to be in the hospital during the course of either visiting or working,” he said.
Kothe said the only way to really protect yourself is to keep everything but your ID at home.
“If you could figure out a way to figure once you’re in the hospital as a patient to not have anything, with the exception of some cash that maybe you could afford to lose, that would be my advice,” he said.
But the victims believe something needs to change.
“When you go to the hospital, you go there to get better, and you should go there knowing that whatever you have with you is secure, and you’re going to take it home the way you brought it,” said Betty Ames.
12 News reached out to spokespeople from the hospitals in connection to the three cases mentioned. One of them did not respond to our request for comment.
The other two thefts happened at the same hospital. Hospital staff said they are routinely evaluating the best practices to reduce the risk of theft.
Another piece of advice from our law enforcement expert is to check your credit card statement right when you leave the hospital. It’s possible someone could have used it and put it back before you even knew it was gone.