Today is the third anniversary of my father’s death. I have not slept well. We still, three years on, don’t know what really happened to him. No-one has been held to account for his injury or his untimely death.
I have a theory, one I cannot prove but which fits the evidence far better than the whitewash presented at the inquest:
My father had ticklish feet. On that fate-full morning, towards the end of a hard night-shift, the staff went to dress him as per normal. As they put on his socks they tickled his feet and, unable to explain what was irritating him owing to his Alzheimer’s, he kicked out, probably as a reflex action.
Pergaps the person putting his socks on, grabbed his foot and pushed it away, resulting in the break to his hip. Perhaps when he kicked out he struck something and the resistance was enough to cause to the break? We don’t know.
While there was a body to examine he was never diagnosed with any degenerative bone disorder, he had never broken anything before. Of course, after he’d been cremated the NHS suddenly found some ‘evidence’ of osteoporosis and this was disclosed as a shock revelation at the inquest by the doctor who appeared to have been assigned to take the fall.
As he screamed in pain it was decided to move him to the bed to help take weight from the affected area, and that is how he ended up in bed, half dressed and in pain.
It sure fits the evidence better than this presented scenario that a man who had never fallen, had suddenly had a fall so severe as to brake his hip socket. Especially when there was NO EVIDENCE that he had fallen in the way of bruises to ANY part of his body after the incident and lord knows the nurses kept looking for them, and so did my mother.
For a man who was physically fit, who never shuffled or used any aids to walk, who would simply get up unaided and follow you about if you asked him, it makes a whole lot more sense that the rubbish presented at the whitewash (I refuse to call it an inquest because it wasn’t – it was a whitewash).
Even IF, and I don’t personally believe it, he did have osteoporosis, my argument for what happened is still more feasible than the explanation presented at the inquest. If fact, it actually makes it more likely as it would have taken much less force to inflict the injury and simply pushing his foot away could then have quite easily resulted in the damage caused. Of course, people involved in elderly care, should realise the possible fraility of their patients bodies.
There was never any evidence he fell, just a speculation. No-one claimed to have ever see him fall at any point in the time he with the NHS or afterwards, and everyone admitted he had never fallen before. No-one could explain who it would be possible for a man who had fallen, and injured his hip to the extent his leg had to be surgically lowered and placed into traction, could then have (unaided) got back up and returned to his bed. The theory presented at the whitewash makes no sense.
My theory does.
After months spent on the ward in the regular hospital he was moved, during one of the hottest summers on record, to a nursing home miles from where the family could keep and eye on him.
In pain and unable to communicate his confusion, frustration or fear, he was left in his room during the height of the that summer without water. Unable to feed himself he clawed at his food with his bare hands, there was evidence of this when my mother went to visit him. The chair seat was covered in the remains of several dinners and his nails were caked in grime which she had to clean out.
There was no water in the room on any occasion that she managed to get relatives to take her the long uncomfortable journey to visit him.
Unable to get to water as he couldn’t walk now thanks to his injury, and unable to communicate what he needed, shouting from his room to a world that didn’t care, he succumbed to emaciation and dehydration siz weeks after he was taken there. Rushed into hospital where the A&E staff described just that, and were shocked to find he had come from a care home, too late to save him.
The A&E doctor said he could usually bring them back but for my father it was too late. They pumped him full of fluids but the damage was done and he died.
Yes, the inquest was right in respect that the hip injury did not directly kill him. DIRECTLY being the operative word here. It was afterall over six months between the injury and his death. He had been fine on the normal hospital ward where my mother paid, almost without fail, daily visits to him. Where she helped to feed him and where the nursing staff were used to helping him.
The care home’s incompetence was demonstrated again by the fact that when we did finally get to the inquest every single one of the original staff who were at the care home at the time of his death no longer worked there. Did they all leave? Were they sick of what they saw there? Or were they fired?
The care home’s incompetence was demonstrated again, when they billed my family for my families contributions towards his room and food etc for over a month after his death. They didn’t even know he had died!
And again when it came to light that the cheque mum had sent for his hair cuts and personal care had gone missing, never cashed.
Would the outcome be different if the police hadn’t taken weeks to bother to interview the people who were there the morning he was injured? Maybe.
Would the outcome be different if the police had bothered to interview anyone from the care home before they disappeared? Possibly, the inquest throught it possible because it was adjerned so this could happen. But it was almost a year down the line and the staff that were found gave almost identical responses that basically said nothing at all.
I suppose that all of them had no only left but moved house as well. Otherwise, they would have been contactable at their home addresses which would have been held in the personel files of the care home head office. Or did no-one look there?
We don’t know.
We have not forgotten my father, or what the system did to him.
We will not forget, and we will continue to strive for answers.
