An elderly woman suffered what proved to be a fatal fall after being helped out of her hospital bed by another patient.
Poppy Ellarby (81) and the other inpatient were both confused and had talked about leaving Boston’s Pilgrim Hospital together.
Mrs Ellarby was helped down her bed and around the bed rail by the fellow ward 6A patient – being named by The Voice only as Mrs H.
But Mrs Ellarby, who needed help on her feet, fell to the floor when Mrs H could not bear her weight. She banged her head, causing severe damage which went undiagnosed for several hours.
However, an inquest earlier this month heard that a delay in a doctor seeing Mrs Ellarby, of Rembrandt Way, Spalding, after the fall did not contribute to her death.
The incident on July 23 was witnessed by a third patient on the ward, who was mentally well but has since died from a cardiac event.
Mrs Morrow told staff how Mrs Ellarby – who came from the same area as Mrs H – asked Mrs H to help her out of bed so they could leave.
Mrs H, who was independently mobile, “pulled and wrestled” Mrs Ellarby to the end of the bed.
The inquest heard that Mrs Morrow called to them: “What are you doing? Stop it.”
Mrs H returned to bed after the fall. The hearing was told that she was not mentally well enough to know what she was doing.
Staff found Mrs Ellarby on the floor at her bedside. She was returned to her bed and was talking, saying she wanted to go home.
The incident happened about 9pm. Her “obs” were taken and then repeated every 15 minutes, stretching to half an hour then hourly, as is procedure.
Staff nurse Lauren Kwiecien had asked a doctor to attend soon after the fall, but the doctor was on another floor and would “come when she could”.
Lauren told the inquest: “The rest of the team knew I was becoming upset because I wanted her [Mrs Ellarby] to be reviewed.”
Near midnight and 20 minutes after the last obs, a heathcare worker noticed Mrs Ellarby had become warm. This was the first sign that her condition was deteriorating, and she quickly slipped into unconsciousness.
A CT scan was sent to neurology experts at Queen’s Medical Centre in Nottingham. She had suffered a subdural haematoma (bleed between the brain and skull).
Treatment was deemed futile and she died at 7.45am.
The conclusion by Prof Robert Forrest, coroner for South Lincolnshire, was accidental death.
Referring to doctors not responding quickly to the nurse’s concerns, he said: “I’m quite sure this is something that Linda [Stockwell, Pilgrim head of nursing for medicine] will take back.”
Prof Forrest was also “distressed” that Dr Pakeerathy Nagulesan and Dr Quoc Nguyen didn’t know the circumstances surrounding Mrs Ellarby’s death when they wrote reports afterwards.
The inquest came almost ten years to the day that Mrs Ellarby’s grandson Daniel Turner was killed in a road accident at Fleet.
Poppy’s daughter Jayne Turner – a registered nurse – said the family was “disappointed” with the outcome, particularly that the coroner ruled that there were no recommendations for him to report upon.
She added: “We didn’t particularly want any one person blamed but I think if there had been some sort of issue with the [hospital’s] trust as a whole it might have helped as a whole; a way forward to try and ensure nothing like this happens again.
“It’s an unusual set of circumstances but it happened. As it is, it’s been left with the staff at the inquest to take back his suggestions.
“We hope measures are put in place.”
