A 99-year-old great-grandmother got quite a shock when she opened her mail recently, only to find a letter from a hospital, calling her for an antenatal appointment.
Doris Ayling, who has seven grandchildren and 13 great-grandchildren, received the letter from an NHS hospital following an embarrassing blunder.
While the team at Fareham Community Hospital have not yet been able to figure out exactly how the mistake occurred, they have apologised to Ms Ayling and her family.
Commenting on the incident to local media, Ms Ayling – who is approaching her one-hundredth birthday – said that she found the whole situation ‘amusing’.
“I was a bit amused. I’ve never been to the Portsmouth hospitals and I don’t know where the Fareham hospital is. It’s a complete mystery to me how I got this letter,” she said.
She added, jokingly: “I had three children when I was 20, 23 and 29 – that was enough!”
A spokesman for the Portsmouth Hospitals NHS Trust said: “We have written to the lady that was incorrectly sent the appointment letter. It was a rare administrative error and we have apologised for any unnecessary anxiety this error may have caused.”
