The Dublin county coroner is to write to the Health Service Executive to request an immediate inspection of a Co Dublin nursing home following the death of an elderly woman under distressing circumstances, an inquest heard yesterday.
Elizabeth Donovan (98) died at Lucan Lodge Nursing Home on May 28th, 2006. Dublin county coroner Dr Kieran Geraghty said the cause of Mrs Donovan's death was pneumonia with associated skin ulceration, cystitis and dehydration. He recorded a verdict of misadventure.
The coroner had been contacted by the undertaker "because he was so concerned about the condition of her body". The inquest heard Mrs Donovan suffered from severe skin haematoma, an ulceration whereby her skin would tear to the touch.
Dr Geraghty said Mrs Donovan had such extensive skin ulceration she should have been seen by a doctor. "The pathologist said she would have been in pain," he said.
Nurse manager Gillian Lynch told the inquest they "didn't see the need" for a doctor before Mrs Donovan died because one had seen her six weeks before her death and was aware of the ulceration. She said Mrs Donovan "was comfortable" and staff applied a type of bandage called "gamgee" to her skin.
A daughter of Mrs Donovan, Nora Monahan, told the inquest her mother was in pain during the last few months of her life. "She was crying. Otherwise she was well-looked-after. It was hard to nurse her." Her other daughter, Gertrude, said she had seen her mother's legs prior to her death and "couldn't look at them".
"There was blood running down and her legs were black."
A senior nurse manager at the facility, Julie Lewis Ashley, told the inquest Mrs Donovan had been taking very little food and drinking very little prior to her death. She said the old lady did not appear to be in pain. She told the coroner the home is inspected on a six-monthly basis and had been inspected in the November or December prior to Mrs Donovan's death.
Mrs Donovan's GP, Dr Mary Boyd, called to see her after she died on May 28th and contacted the coroner when she couldn't confirm the cause of death.
Dr Boyd said she had seen Mrs Donovan six weeks prior to her death.
She treated her for a small lesion on her leg, but said she had no ulceration on her arms or legs.