Leamington solicitor praised for 'bringing closure' to widow over unpleasant and distressing hospital ordeal

Mrs Maria Kelly said that the hard work and persistence of Claire Kirwan, partner and head of clinical negligence at Leamington solicitors Blythe Liggins, had helped to bring closure to her husband’s ordeal.

Things began to go wrong when 76-year-old John Kelly, who had lived with Maria in Leamington for 23 years, was admitted to University Hospital Coventry in March 2017.

Already suffering from dementia and a long-standing heart condition, Mrs Kelly said her husband was given the wrong dose of his medication, which set off his pacemaker/defibrillator.

She said: “My husband said the pain was like being kicked in the chest by a donkey.”

Nothing was said to his wife at the time but she later read about it in his discharge notes.

The following month, Mr Kelly woke during the night before Easter Day unable to use his legs and was taken by ambulance back to the hospital.

During that night he twice fell out of his bed sustaining injuries to his head and limbs.

Mrs Kelly said that when she had left her husband’s bedside that night he was looking well, but when she returned with their daughter Brigid the following morning they could

hardly recognise him.

She said: “His face looked crushed, his eyes were blackened and his nose looked broken.

"Both his arms were bandaged and his legs and feet were cut.

"The life went out of me when I saw him.

We had been married for 42 years but I had never seen him like that.

He was not the man I had seen the night before.”

Mrs Kelly later found out that a patient had gone to her husband’s aid after his first fall but hadn’t been able to raise medical staff to help.

He told Mrs Kelly that he eventually found two nurses shut away in a room on their break. However, the nursing staff still didn’t deploy the bed-guards.

Then, some hours later, Mr Kelly fell out of the bed for a second time.

“When my daughter and I tried to get to the bottom of matters we were simply fobbed

off," Mrs Kelly said.

"We had been told originally that he would be discharged on the Tuesday, either to come home or to go to a rehabilitation hospital.

"But on that Tuesday a doctor said that John was dying and it was now just a ‘waiting game’.

"He died on the following Sunday, a week after his admission.”

Ms Kirwan said that the incidents were entirely due to poor medical care and that UHCW Trust had admitted liability and that Mrs Kelly had now received a substantial sum in

damages.

“To allow an elderly patient to fall out of bed once is terrible. To allow it to happen twice in the same night is unforgivable," said Ms Kirwan.

"The injuries Mr Kelly sustained in the falls resulted in his condition going rapidly downhill and caused his final days with his wife and daughter at his bedside to be extremely unpleasant and distressing for all concerned.”

Mrs Kelly said: “We just couldn’t have done this without Claire. She had empathy with us from the start and her expertise and dogged perseverance means that we have now finally found closure.”

We have contacted UHCW Trust for a comment.