Hospital bosses tell daughter her mum had died before disturbing truth revealed
26.02.2024 - 08:11
/ dailyrecord.co.uk
A daughter was mortified after doctors called her to say her mother had passed away in hospital before finding a different patient dead in the bed.
Ruth Thomas, 52, slammed the hospital for its "lack of duty of care" after mum Kathleen was admitted following a stomach bleed. Ruth said her 83-year-old mother's safeguarding, even after the blunder, was inadequate as her personal hygiene was allegedly neglected - insisting that her room at The Grange University Hospital in Cwmbran, Wales, was dirty.
Around four weeks into her stay at the new NHS hospital, doctors rang Ruth to inform her Kathleen had passed away. Ruth said she and her sister Joanne had been told if their mother's condition, worsened at this stage by contracting Covid, was to deteriorate they'd be informed immediately.
However, upon arrival, the sisters were escorted into a room to find a different woman lying lifeless in the bed. A mix-up had led to the wrong family being informed - meaning the woman's real relatives were completely unaware of the tragedy at the time.
Ruth, who runs a therapeutic play service for a children's mental health charity, told the Mirror: "I didn’t recognise my mum and then my sister started to scream 'that’s not our mum'... Outside the room, we repeatedly asked 'where’s our mum?' Chaos ensued and the auxiliary nurse kept repeating 'someone called the wrong family' and it wasn’t her (Kathleen), totally ignoring my sister and I. As we left, there was still chaos between the nurses, no one had informed the other lady's family at this stage and I am sure they weren’t informed what had happened to us.
"It's a lack of respect for mum and the other woman's dignity. When we were called to the hospital, it was because we were told our mum had