Mental patient found hanged in hospital bed

A 24-YEAR-old woman was removed from special observation in a psychiatric unit only days before she hanged herself at a Dublin hospital, an inquest has heard.

Fodhla Murray from Inchicore in Dublin, who suffered from depression, had been on special observation by a psychiatric nurse for a period in the week before her death on June 6, 2005, in St James’s Hospital, Dublin.

Her mother, Eileen Kelly-Holden, who visited her the day before her death, said: “She seemed as normal as she could be under the circumstances.”

Ms Kelly-Holden told the Dublin City Coroner her daughter had complained to her about another woman in her ward disturbing her.

“She told me the woman was always going around trying to choke people,” she said. Ms Kelly-Holden said that, during her visit, the patient had also approached her with her arms outstretched as if to put them around her neck.

Before the inquest was adjourned due to a juror taking ill, the deceased’s mother said she could not remember if she had spoken to staff at the hospital about her concerns over the other patient.

“She used to say she was terrified of another person who was high on drugs,” she added.

Ken Johnston, a psychiatric nurse at the hospital, said he discovered Ms Murray on the floor after 8pm after pulling back the curtains around her bed.

The nurse said a sheet tied to the headboard of the bed was wrapped around her neck.

He said the other two patients in the ward had not been alerted to anything.

“She was on general observation at the time,” he said, adding he believed she was a voluntary patient. He said she had been on special observation by a nurse on a one-to-one basis earlier that week.

Emma Molloy, another psychiatric nurse on the ward, said she saw Ms Murray around 7.55pm sitting on her bed and had pulled open the curtains around it for security reasons.

Ms Molloy said she believed the special observation was discontinued a day or two before her death.