7:20am Thursday 9th October 2008
By Jack Royston
A WOMAN has described seeing her elderly husband left in a bed covered in blood on a ward where patients were tied to chairs.
Elizabeth Wheatley walked onto Fletcher Ward at Northwick Park Hospital in December last year to find her 86-year-old husband, Kenneth, with a broken shoulder after falling out of bed.
Just before Christmas, Mrs Wheatley went to visit her husband in hospital, and saw his bed was covered in blood.
When she asked staff about it, she says they suggested her husband bruised easily.
Mrs Wheatley told the Harrow Times: “He told me in a very garbled state that he’d fallen out of bed and then they told me he’d climbed out of bed.
“It’s just terrible to think that a big London hospital was in such a state.”
Mr Wheatley was initially admitted to A&E at Northwick Park Hospital after a fall at his Kingsbury home but ended up being transferred to Fletcher Ward, where it was recently revealed patients were strapped to chairs with sheets and men’s braces.
A report recently released by the PCT found the human rights of five patients had been breached.
Mr Wheatley did not undergo the humiliating treatment himself but hearing about the incident brought his wife’s memories flooding back.
She said: “I want somebody to take account of what they did to my husband. It may not seem like much but it means a hell of a lot to me.”
Doctors on the ward advised Mrs Wheatley to put her husband in a home but she could not afford to pay for it so she took him back to their house, in Blair Avenue.
He died of a heart attack on March 12, just ten days before his 87th birthday. No inquest was held into his death.
Mrs Wheatley said: “The day he went into hospital he was sitting here in my dining room. He was able to eat and feed himself. He could walk with a frame.
“I cannot say he was a very happy person, because of his condition, but he wasn’t unhappy. In that hospital he was just miserable.”
Jonathon Street, a spokesman for the PCT, said: “We are very sorry that Mr Wheatley had a distressing time in Fletcher Ward.
“As the family did not make a complaint to the PCT at the time it is very difficult to respond in detail.
“We would urge all patients who have a problem in hospital to make their views known to the staff at the time so that improvements can be brought in. The Patient Advisory and Liaison Service is there to help them.”
He said a number of complaints were made about the ward and the feedback has contributed to a programme of improvements being implemented.
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