The daughter of a dementia-sufferer took her 85-year-old mother out of a Halifax nursing home after being told she was ‘dying’.
Diane Hagreen said she was contacted by a former care worker at the privately-run Elm View nursing home who said she had been told that her mother Phyllis had “an horrendous pressure sore.”
Miss Hagreen said: “The lady, who was a night carer, told her to tell me to get my mother out of Elm View because she was dying.”
Bradford Crown Court heard yesterday that Miss Hagreen’s mother had previously suffered two strokes and was unable to speak and when she went to the home to see her the next day she looked “dreadfully ill.”
She said she had been visiting daily at the home but had not been told that her mother had a pressure sore.
Miss Hagreen asked her family doctor to go into the home to see her mother and the prosecution allege that it was only then that Mrs Hagreen was referred to a tissue viability nurse for treatment of the pressure sore on her coccyx.
The 85-year-old complainant was moved out of the home in late September 2011 and following treatment from specialist nurses the pressure sore greatly improved.
Elm View’s former manager Faheza Simpson, 49, of Huddersfield Road, Holmfirth, and its owner Philip Bentley, 65, of Woodthorpe Drive, Sandal, Wakefield, have both denied allegations of neglect relating to four residents at the home.
During questioning by Simpson’s barrister Michelle Colborne QC, Miss Hagreen said she took her mother out of Elm View because she knew she would have died there.
“Would it be accurate to say Miss Hagreen that as at the end of July and into September Elm View was under-staffed?” asked Miss Colborne.
“I would have said that things weren’t right at the home because if they had have been, to my point of view, my mother’s pressure sore should have been detected,” replied Miss Hagreen.
The prosecution has alleged that Mrs Hagreen was neglected following her transfer to Elm View because the home failed to determine she was at risk of developing pressure sores and then failed to take preventative measures.
The prosecution claim that her pressure sore was not referred promptly to the tissue viability nurse and that Simpson only did so after the intervention of the doctor contacted by Mrs Hagreen’s daughter.
The trial continues.
