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Are the below sentence constructions correct?
a) He got a discharge from the hospital.
b) He has got a discharge from the hospital.
To get can mean to receive. One can receive a discharge from the hospital.
He has received a discharge from hospital.
So, in another way, can we say,
He has got a discharge from the hospital.
Discharge can be used as a noun, meaning: the action of discharging someone from a hospital or the armed forces or police.
As a native British English speaker that works in hospital information, I can confirm that "discharge" is used as a noun, for example:
We had 100 admissions and 100 discharges this morning.
It is quite common in any line of work for 'jargon' to develop, and for the names of processes to become the name for the result or outcome - for example, if you work in retail you might hear goods which have been returned called "returns" rather than "returned goods", but I could not find that particular definition in my dictionary.
I find no problem with either of your examples:
a) He got a discharge from the hospital.
b) He has got a discharge from the hospital.
I would also expect to hear:
- He got discharged from the hospital.
- He got a discharge from the hospital.
- He has been discharged from hospital.
The latter, "he has been discharged from hospital" is probably the most idiomatic.
I find no problem with either of your examples So, any visitor to this page in the future will presume that the OP's expressions are native-like, and natural sounding. If that is so, please find supporting evidence and place it IN the answer.
Sep 16, 2019 at 11:33
discharge as noun in reference to hospitals:
1) What is hospital discharge? When you leave a hospital after treatment, you go through a process called hospital discharge. A hospital will discharge you when you no longer need to receive inpatient care and can go home. Or, a hospital will discharge you to send you to another type of facility.
Johns Hopkins University Hospital
google results: About 3,540,000 results (0.48 seconds)
That said, the verb is to be discharged from (a) hospital.
2) military discharges
A military discharge is simply defined as a military member being released from their obligation to continue service in the armed forces.
The verb here is "to receive an honorable or dishonorable discharge
3) discharge of contract
means: to allow a party to not be bound by a contract
4) discharge of duties, to perform or execute duties.
Here are the most usual uses of discharge as a noun
5) discharge from a gun is the firing of a gun
6) discharge of a substance into some area [liquid or similar]
It is more correct to say:
c) He has been discharged from the hospital.
If we look up "He has been discharged from the hospital" on ludwig.com, we find these examples:
- Nelson Mandela, 94, has been discharged from hospital. (Independent)
- No arrests have been made and the victim has been discharged from hospital. (The Guardian)
While you can make an argument for using the word this way not being grammatically incorrect, technically, this is not the way that a native English speaker would describe the event of being released from the hospital (not in the U.S., at least).
The usage you suggest is common when discussing terms of military service ending, particularly if describing the conditions of the end of service:
He received an honorable discharge from the Air Force.
Members of the military have an explicit obligation to do certain things and behave in certain ways while they are in the military, and the conditions under which they leave military service can continue to apply to their lives. For example, if someone is dishonorably discharged from the military they are legally required (in the U.S.) to say so when applying for jobs in the future.
So, while a person may have been discharged from the military, it may be the case that they also "have a discharge" which continues to describe them in the present.
Usage of discharge in this way is strongly related to employment, specifically (see definition 8).
The constructions in the question are a somewhat different situation. Charge is, in terms of a hospital stay, about a person being given over to the hospital for care. It is true that that person is a charge of the hospital. But discharge doesn't describe that person or an event which continues to be relevant to their identity into the future. Instead it only describes something that happens to them: they are, themselves, discharged from the hospital. The interpretation of discharge here is that they physically leave the hospital.
Further, a discharge is typically not something that a hospital can grant or withhold-- nearly all hospital stays are voluntary on the part of the patient, who can leave at any time they wish. Circumstances in which the patient may not choose to leave are generally described as being committed to the hospital, and a commitment ending is described as such (or the patient is released from the hospital, emphasizing that they were being held there previously).
In that light it makes less sense to describe someone as "getting" a discharge from the hospital, as it is not something the hospital can give, or decline to give.
I can't promise that there are no English-speaking regions where people use discharge as in the question, but it's definitely not typical usage. Whether or not it is technically acceptable according to a particular standard of grammar, this is not a good construction to convey your intended meaning in English.
If we leave these considerations aside, the constructions would be broadly OK. Try substituting a word used more typically as a concrete noun in such a case:
He got a bottle of medicine from the hospital.
He has got a bottle of medicine from the hospital.
These are correct because the bottle of medicine is a noun, which he received in the past. The second version indicates that he received the bottle of medicine in the past, continued to have it from then until the present, and still has it today.
Since discharge is not commonly used as a noun in this scenario (even if it technically could be so used) native speakers will tend to think of it as an action strictly in the past which may or may not apply to the present:
He has gotten a discharge from the hospital
But again, this is really an idle question. Technically correct or not, the constructions in the question simply aren't used in English.
Discharge as a noun:Discharge (noun):
(PERMISSION TO LEAVE) -Official permission to leave the armed forces, a prison, or a hospital:
The judge gave him a one-year conditional discharge.
The soldier received a dishonourable discharge for a disciplinary offence.
(SUBSTANCE) -The act of sending out waste liquid or gas:
Thousands of fish were killed as a result of a discharge of poisonous chemicals from a nearby factory.
OR -Liquid matter that comes from a part of the body and is often infected:
A vaginal discharge.
(PERFORMANCE) -The performance of duties or payment of money that is owed:
The discharge of his duties.
(LEAVING) -The act of asking or allowing someone to leave a place, esp. a job:
McCarthy held the rank of captain at the time of his discharge from the army.
OR -A release from duty.
She got a discharge from the army.
(FIRING GUN)[Uncountable] -The action of firing a gun:
The discharge of a weapon.
The police stated that some 50 rounds had been discharged.
(FINANCE) -The end of a debt, or an official order that ends someone’s duty to pay a debt:
Bankrupts must undergo credit counselling before receiving a discharge of their debts.
(ENVIRONMENT) -A waste substance that is sent into the air or water from a factory or business:
$1 billion was spent to reduce the plant’s mercury discharge.
Depending on these informations:
He got a discharge from the hospital.
He has got a discharge from the hospital.
same as:
She got a discharge from the army.
Which is in the meaning of leaving some place or a job or duty and totaly correct usage! But if your intention is to provide a meaning that refers to permission to leave then:
He has received a discharge from hospital.
would be the correct usage.
Sources: Cambridge Dictionary and Merriam-Webster
If ultimately you are asking whether those two sentences are correct, the answer is yes they are; at least in IndE.
After the accused underwent a minor surgery, he immediately got a discharge from the hospital.
That is from IndiaTimes
There it is used as a noun.
Now, can it be used as a verb? Yes, it can be.
...they discharged him from hospital on Monday.
That is from Collins.
