Family of patient found hanging in ward felt ‘let down’

AN inquest was told yesterday the family of a 37-year-old psychiatric patient felt “let down” after she was found hanging in a ward at Cork University Hospital.

Ann Carroll from Cooldubh, Lissarda, Co Cork, took an overdose on August 29 last and was admitted to CUH. On September 6, she was transferred to the GF psychiatric ward and by October 15 was deemed fit enough to be discharged on a weekend break back home.

However, on Sunday, October 17 she was readmitted to the psychiatric ward after she tried to slash her wrist. On admittance she told staff she was not happy, that everything was strange and that she couldn’t cope with life. She was given medication to calm her down and she promised that she wouldn’t harm herself.

Staff told Cork City Coroner Dr Myra Cullinane that later that evening she seemed to have settled down. At about 7.30 she passed the nurses’ station as shifts were changing. Half an hour later as staff were doing their rounds, they went into the ward where Ms Carroll was.

A curtain had been pulled around her bed. When they opened the curtain they found Ms Carroll hanging inside a built-in wardrobe. She had used her nylon nightie as a ligature and wrapped it around a clothes bar inside the wardrobe.

Staff made frantic efforts to revive her with cardiac massage and a special resuscitation team was called in. Despite their efforts she was pronounced dead at 8.25pm. Pathologist Dr Margaret Bolster’s post mortem showed that Ms Carroll died from cardio-respitory failure and that it was, in Dr Cullinane’s opinion, an almost instantaneous death. This, together with the fact that a curtain was around her bed and wardrobe, was probably why the two other female patients in the room didn’t know what had happened and didn’t alert staff.

Night superintendent Vincent Kearns told Dr Cullinane that staff had responded very quickly. Dr Cullinane was told that as a result of Ms Carroll’s death all clothes bars in built-in lockers were removed. Solicitor Pat Gould, representing Ms Carroll’s family, said that her sister, Joan O’Reilly, wanted to address the inquest because there were things she wanted to say. He said the family felt “let down by what had happened.”

Dr Cullinane said she understood the death of Ms Carroll was very distressing for the family, but she ruled that it would be inappropriate for Mrs O’Reilly to speak.