Nurse to sue over her parents’ deaths from hospital superbug

[okarol]

October 27, 2007
Nurse to sue over her parents’ deaths from hospital superbug
Simon de Bruxelles

Edinburgh -- The family of an elderly couple who died within 25 minutes of each other after contracting a hospital superbug are to sue the NHS over their deaths.

Lionel and Rosemary Owen died holding hands in adjacent beds having both contracted Clostridium difficile.

Their daughter Nina Griffith, who is a nurse, claims that the Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital (RD&E) discharged her mother, who had contracted C. diff as an outpatient undergoing renal dialysis, knowing that she was a risk to her 80-year-old husband.

The couple spent two days in the same ward before they died a month before their 20th wedding anniversary. Mr Owen was admitted to the RD&E for four days on December 30 with a chest infection. On January 7 his wife was admitted to the intensive care unit suffering from diarrhoea. The next day he was taken to a nursing home with the same symptoms. On January 10 staff switched off their life-support machines. Mrs Owen died of a heart failure and Mr Owen of a brain haemorrhage.

Recording a verdict of misadventure on Mr Owen, Dr Elizabeth Earland, the Exeter and Greater Devon Coroner, said: “Investigations identified that the strain of C. diff identified in Mr Owen and his wife Rosemary are identical. This suggests Mr Owen may well have been exposed to the organism by his wife.” No inquest is to be held into Mrs Owen’s death.

A spokesman for the hospital said it was investigating the deaths.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/article2748791.ece

[Black]

My mother got c. diff while in hospital for emergency gall bladder surgery.  She was almost 80 at the time and it took well over a thousand dollars worth of medication and several weeks for her to recover.  The nurses kept telling her that nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea are to be expected after gall bladder surgery.  She was not diagnosed until AFTER she came home.  If not for my sister, I think they would have let her die.

The worst thing was that a nurse walked through her vomit and diarrhea on the floor and headed out into the hall.  My sister pointed to her footprints on the floor and told her that she was tracking it out of the room.  The nurse grabbed a towel, wiped the bottom of her shoe, and threw the towel in a laundry hamper by the door, and walked on out!  My sister said she expected her to at least put the disinfectant, which was in the room, all over her shoe and the floor -- she did neither.  When the guy showed up 20 minutes later to clean it up, my mother apologized for the mess, then my sister told him he had just 5 minutes to get someone in the room to clean up my mother or she was going to cause a huge scene at the nurses station.  He quickly came back with two people, new bed linens, and a new gown for my mother.  We have wondered how many people got sick because the staff were so careless.  My sister and I were ready to take scalps but my mother begged us to just let it go, so we did nothing.  I still feel guilty for that.

[paddbear0000]

These are just some of the reasons why I am terrified to get a transplant!! Both the couple's and Blacks' mother's cases are horrible! I' feel so bad for them!