Woman died from ‘bed sores after nursing home’

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 last night.

The daughter of Dorothy Black told how she moved her mother from Leas Crossnursing 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 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 the Leas Cross home after her aunt said the pensioner’s weight had dropped and she looked close to death.

Ms Black 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 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, noting that Ms 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 Ms 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.

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.”