A 73-year-old woman died from massive bed sores, which left gaping holes down to the bone, after spending nine weeks in a Dublin nursing home, an inquest heard tonight.
The daughter of Dorothy Black told how she moved her mother from Leas Cross nursing home in Dublin's Swords after she developed "gigantic holes" in her body which contained "rotting, smelly flesh".
Clodagh Black claimed that if it was not for her intervention to move Mrs Black to Beaumont Hospital on November 24th, 2003 her mother would have quickly died.
"I firmly believe if we had not insisted that Mammy was sent in (to Beaumont Hospital) that night, that Mammy would have been found dead in a couple of days," Ms Black said.
She told the Dublin City Coroner's Court that she moved to take her mother from the Leas Cross home after her Aunt said the pensioner's weight had dropped and she looked close to death.
Ms Black, whose father had just died a few months beforehand, told the court that she was horrified by what she saw after a nurse examined her mother in the accident and emergency department of the Dublin hospital. "I know what bed sores are but these were huge holes in my mother's body on her legs, the size of melons. They contained rotting smelling flesh, black-green flesh with bone visible, bed sores they were not," she added.
Ms Black claimed that staff at the nursing home had said that her mother had only "slight bed sores" and they were being taken care of after they questioned her condition.
The inquest heard that Mrs Black from Raheny in Dublin, who was suffering from Alzheimer's disease and was wheelchair bound, was being treated in St Ita's Hospital in Portrane, Co Dublin since May 31st, 2003 and a consultant said there were no signs of pressure sores. However, she was then moved to Leas Cross nursing home for respite care on September 17th, 2003, where she later developed the bed sores, before she was transferred to Beaumont Hospital.
Dr Henry Osbourne, a surgeon at Beaumont Hospital, said the woman had severe buttock sores when she was admitted. He said many specialists had seen her but she died on January 14th, 2004 despite attempts to improve her health.
The pathologist at Beaumont Hospital, Dr Emma Doyle, found that the 73-year-old died on January 14th, 2004, from septicaemia as a result of extensive pressure sores. Dr Doyle said there were around eight pressure sores, including a sore on her right hip, around nine by eight centimetres in size, which extended into the muscle, while the sore on her left hip went down to the bone.
The coroner, Dr Brian Farrell, passed a verdict of death by medical misadventure, noting that Mrs Black had Alzheimer's disease and was immobile prior to her death. He said he would inform all the institutions mentioned in the case of the family's concerns surrounding Mrs Black's death.
Leas Cross said she had been provided with pressure relieving mattresses and chair cushions due to her lack of mobility and a matron at the hospital said that her position was changed on a two-hourly basis during her time there.
The matron at Leas Cross, Grainne Conway, had told the court on the first day of the inquest that an outbreak of psoriasis had been a factor in the sores and said they had a difficulty in getting her to eat, which had led to her losing weight.
Dr Barry Moodley, a general practitioner in Swords who had been attending at Leas Cross, said the sores were "nothing unusual for medical people, for lay people to see that it would be unusual." He said they had attempted to give a high protein diet and medication in a bid to combat the sores. The doctor admitted: "This was one of the worst I had seen myself."
However, he said that it sometimes happens and it was not unusual to see a regression in sores where there was little healing power in the body. He said doctors were reluctant to admit people to A&E wards.
"We don't like to refer to hospitals, geriatrics are like children they don't like being displaced," he said. "They go to a hospital and they tend to get the hospital bug (MRSI), which happened in this case."
Dr Moodley said the patient continued to deteriorate even in hospital and developed further bed sores before her death.
PA