A woman has cried foul after being discharged from the hospital’s emergency room, claiming she was turned away because staff there refused to take her complaint seriously.

Saudia Virgil told The Royal Gazette she had to call for an ambulance on Sunday night after suffering a painful fall at her new residence in the Gulf Stream emergency housing in St David’s.

“I’d hit my head, hard — I couldn’t even tell where I was,” Ms Virgil said.

“The ambulance came, they took my blood pressure and my blood sugar and told me I didn’t want to go to hospital. They said, ‘You look all right to me.’ I said, ‘Are you for real?’”

She added that she was known to many at the hospital, having been homeless until recently.

Ms Virgil, who is 50, said has also suffered from sporadic seizures throughout her life.

While waiting for a doctor, she was seen by a nurse. Although still complaining of head pain, she was discharged after getting a “quick” check and being told there was nothing wrong. Ms Virgil said her head pain continued after she returned home, and at 2.30am she was found by two security guards, wandering the housing facility in a disorientated state.

“I didn’t know who I was or where I was — they told me they thought I had stayed at the hospital,” she said. “I could have walked out into the road; anything could have happened to me.”

A spokeswoman for the Bermuda Hospitals Board said that BHB was not at liberty to comment on an individual’s case.

“Patients who come to the emergency department complaining of a blow to the head are evaluated and treated based on international clinical guidelines, which include checking for any signs of concussion,” she said.