‘I felt like I was in a horror movie’

LEAH GRANT said the day she removed her father, Richard Walsh, from Leas Cross nursing home would haunt her until she died.

“My dad was wheeled down to me in a wheelchair, his head was drooping and there was liquid dripping from his mouth.”

But as she placed newspapers (Mr Walsh loved reading) on her father’s knee, she saw he was dying. Relatives waited half an hour for the home’s doctor, who said Mr Walsh might have pneumonia. Residents were not admitted to hospital directly from the home, Mr Walsh’s family were told.

“I felt like I was in a horror movie,” added Ms Grant.

The family insisted their father be taken to Beaumont hospital and waited another hour-and-a-half for an ambulance.

“We didn’t have nursing experience, but knew he needed his airwaves kept free and we tried as best we could to do it,” she said adding no staff helped while they waited.

Leah said her father was healthy during most of his stay at the north Dublin home between 2001 and 2003, though his condition worsened in late 2002 after he had a number of strokes.

“His health declined seriously. We were told he had a chest infection and he complained constantly of a sore throat and being unable to eat. We rescued him from the home in March 2003.”

Three doses of antibiotics had failed, the daughter told the press conference.

“We later learnt that he had no swallowing reflex and the food that we were feeding to him was going into his lungs. Whatever antibiotics were being given to him, he was being re-infected again.”

Hospital doctors later diagnosed her father as having no swallowing reflexes, as he did not gag when a spatula was put down his throat, the Grants told a press conference yesterday.

Richard Walsh lived for another 32 days. Doctors said it was impossible he had Alzheimer’s disease, despite a letter arriving from the home claiming he did, said Ms Grant. This was evident as he held lengthy discussions with his grandchildren about the invasion of Iraq at the time. Her father died after attempts to insert an eating tube failed. Ms Grant added: “He shouldn’t have been fed in Leas Cross, we shouldn’t have fed him and I want to see someone held accountable.”