An elderly woman had bedsores the size of melons which penetrated into the bone, her daughter told an inquest yesterday.
A verdict of death by medical misadventure was returned yesterday in Dublin Coroner's Court on Dorothy Black (73), who died on January 26th, 2004, from septicaemia and complicating extensive bedsores with a background of Alzheimer's disease and immobility.
Ms Black was transferred from St Ita's Hospital, Portrane, to Leas Cross nursing home in Swords in September 2003. She had become immobile. She developed the bedsores and was transferred to Beaumont Hospital on November 16th, 2003, where she died.
Ms Black's daughter, Clodagh Black, said she and her sister had tried to get information from Leas Cross about their mother's condition.
She was with her mother when she was examined in the A&E at Beaumont and saw the extensive bedsores for the first time.
"There were huge holes in my mother's body, holes the size of melons, with black, green flesh with the bone visible. Bed sores they were not," she said.
The attending GP at Leas Cross, Dr Barry Moodley, said he prescribed medication to prevent the bed sores. He said Ms Black's mobility was poor. She had constant nursing care but in spite of this, penetrative bed sores had developed. "It was one of the worst cases I've seen myself but at the same time these things will happen in these cases," he said.
Ms Black got the MRSA bug in Beaumont, he said. The coroner, Dr Brian Farrell, said, however, that the MRSA did not cause her death.
Ms Gráinne Conway and other nursing staff at Leas Cross gave evidence that in October 2003 Ms Black was given a pressure-relieving mattress and her dressings were changed regularly and she was given total nursing care.
Dr Farrell said that when Ms Black was admitted to Beaumont, she had two large and extensive bed sores and three small ones. When she died, she had eight lesions.
In order to reflect the sequence of events surrounding the death, he would record a verdict of death by medical misadventure, he said. This verdict contained no connotation of blame, nor did it exonerate, Dr Farrell said.