A FORMER employee of a nursing home in Portlaoise told an inquest yesterday she believed the owner was trying to kill an elderly patient. Ms Alice Walsh was giving evidence at the inquest into the death of Mr Frank Burke (86), of Abbeyleix, in the Aisling Nursing Home in August 1995.
The Assistant State Pathologist, Dr Margaret Ann Bolster, has already testified that the elderly man was extremely ill, but his death was accelerated by the ingestion of a combination of drugs.
One of these drugs, pethidine, was a controlled drug for which Mr Burke had no prescription. Pethidine and another drag, promazine, were present in quantities exceeding a therapeutic level in the elderly man's blood.
Mr Burke was prescribed 5ml of promazine at night.
Mrs Walsh, a nurse's aide, told the jury that she witnessed the nursing home owner, Mrs Philomena Gorman, administer 40ml of promazine (Sparine) to Mr Burke at 7:30a.m. on Thursday, August 24th.
The Sparine was put in his mouth and 7 Up was used with the syringe to wash it down. Afterwards Mrs Gorman washed his tongue with the toothbrush and water. Mrs Walsh asked Mrs Gorman why she was doing this and Mrs Gorman replied: "Alice, I have to do it."
Mr John Phelan, counsel for Mrs Gorman, asked Mrs Walsh what she thought Mrs Gorman meant by these words. Mrs Walsh said she did not know. When pressed she replied: "I thought she was trying to kill him."
Mr Phelan said Mrs Walsh's evidence of the administration of Sparine was "a complete and utter lie". He said that his client had been vilified to an astonishing degree. The whole inquiry was peppered with innuendo, he said. Mr Phelan said Mrs Walsh "had it in a big way for Mrs Gorman."
Mrs Walsh said she was appalled at what she saw that morning. She did not tell the gardai. She told only Ms Kathleen Sheil because she was a nurse.
Mrs Walsh also stated that on Friday, August 25th, between 11 p.m. and midnight, she saw Mrs Gorman crush a white tablet with two spoons and dissolve it in water. Mrs Gorman carried this in a container and 20ml of Sparine in a second container to Mr Burke's room.
When Mrs Walsh entered the room she saw Mrs Gorman administer the last of the Sparine to Mr Burke by syringe, using 7 Up. The other container was empty. Mrs Walsh said she knew it was Sparine because it came out of the Sparine bottle.
Mrs Gorman was cross examined by Mr Tom O'Connell counsel for the Burke family. She said that mismanagement at the nursing home was one of the reasons it was removed from the health board register.
She said she had 16 patients in the nursing home on August 25th when she was licensed for 13. She agreed that throughout the month of August the nursing home was over populated. Patients were removed during the day to various, places, including a home in Thurles and a house in Portlaoise.
Mrs Gorman denied sedating, patients to make life easier. She, also denied giving unprescribed sedation to patients.
She said that she did not give pethidine to Mr Burke. She admitted falsifying the time of his death. She said she had recorded that there was no change in the patient's ill condition at 7:30 a.m., although he had died at 4 a.m. "I worte because I did not want visitors coming in on top of me."
She said she liked, to have her "corpses" looking nice.
Rejecting Mrs Walsh's evidence, Mrs Gorman said she did not give Mr Burke anything other than tea and 7 Up on August 24th. She did not administer Sparine. Referring to Ms Sheil's evidence, Mrs Gorman said she was not in the room alone with Mr Burke on Friday, August 25th. She said she brought two empty Sparine bottles from his room to the kitchen and dumped them. She also denied giving any drugs to him that Friday.
The suggestion that she cleaned his tongue with the toothbrush, was "most definitely a lie," Mrs Gorman said. She administered only oral hygiene with gauze swabs and a forceps.
Dr Patricia Callan, director of community care for the Midland Health Board, said the board was concerned about overcrowding in the nursing home in August 1995. There was an anonymous call on August 11th, 1995, expressing concern about the welfare of patients in a house on the Abbeyleix Road, Portlaoise, which had a "For Sale" sign on it.
When the board investigated, Dr Callan said, Mrs Gorman said that it was a private house, and the two elderly patients were her niece's aunt and mother in law.
A nursing home inspection team called to the Aisling Nursing Home on August 15th and found 13 patients in situ. There were records for 16 patients. On the night of August 16th/17th a further visit was paid by the inspection team who had to wait a half hour before gaining admission.
Dr Callan said they also understood patients were being transferred to Thurles without authority. Dr Callan said when questioned Mrs Gorman admitted transferring patients and that the nursing home was over-crowded.