A MAN who died in his room at a Simon Community facility was not found for at least 10 days after his death, an inquest heard yesterday.
Malcolm O'Toole (47), Hazelwood House, Canal Road, Dublin, was found in his room at the low-support residence run by the Simon Community on August 22nd, 2007.
An inquest into Mr O'Toole's death at the Dublin City Coroner's Court yesterday heard he was last seen by staff between August 10th and 11th. The alarm was raised by a relief worker, Maria Pender, after she went to his room to talk to him but could not get a response. She him found him slumped, kneeling over his bed. He was identified from dental records.
Catherine Kenny, head of housing at the Simon Community, said at the time of Mr O'Toole's death that it was not practice to check rooms daily at the low-support facility at the request of residents. However, she said new procedures were in place and if a resident was not seen for 24 hours, checks were made of their room and on any activity on their phone.
A postmortem found Mr O'Toole died of respiratory failure due to the toxic effects of methadone. He also had sedative drugs in his system at the time.
Mr O'Toole had played rugby as a young man but was prescribed morphine after a major leg injury and became dependent on opiates. The coroner recorded a verdict of death by misadventure.