‘Bed sores left gaping holes down to the bones’

A 73-year-old woman died from massive bed sores which left gaping holes down to the bones after spending nine weeks in Leas Cross nursing home, an inquest heard last March.

The daughter of Dorothy Black told how she moved her mother from Leas Cross nursing home in Swords, Co Dublin, after she developed “gigantic holes” in her body which contained “rotting, smelly flesh”.

Clodagh Black claimed if it was not for her intervention to move Ms Black to Beaumont Hospital on November 24, 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 Leas Cross home after her aunt said the pensioner’s weight had dropped.

Ms Black told the court 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 staff at the nursing home had said that her mother had only “slight bed sores” and they were being taken care of.

The inquest heard Ms Black from Raheny, 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 31, 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 17, 2003, where she developed 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 14, 2004, despite attempts to improve her health.

The pathologist at Beaumont Hospital, Dr Emma Doyle, found that the 73-year-old died on January 14, 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.