Son suffers psychiatric injury as a result of substandard care provided to his elderly mother
Joyce was an elderly lady suffering from difficulty breathing, a high temperature and severe pain under her arms. She was taken to a hospital in Coventry after her son, David, had called for an ambulance.
On arrival at the hospital the pain had started to radiate to her chest. A doctor assessed her and performed a brief examination before diagnosing pneumonia. Joyce was advised that it would be safe for her to return home with some antibiotics. David, seeing how unwell his mother looked, was concerned that she should be kept in for further observations. However, despite his request, he was reassured that she would be better off recovering at home. He was informed that he could take his mother home in his car.
After being discharged and left to go out into the winter cold, David began driving his mother home. After only a few minutes into the journey she became unconscious and lifeless. Another ambulance was summoned, leaving David with no choice but to start performing resuscitation on his non-responsive mother until help arrived. Sadly, upon return to the hospital, David was informed that Joyce had passed away.
A post-mortem concluded that Joyce had died as a result of the development of a haemopericardium, and in fact there were no signs of pneumonia. Although admission to the hospital and a correct diagnosis is unfortunately unlikely to have altered the outcome in this case, it would have prevented the extremely distressing situation that occurred for David.
As a consequence of the distressing events, David decided to pursue a clinical negligence claim against the NHS trust for the psychological injury he suffered as a consequence of his mother being discharged that evening and the events that followed. David required therapy and suffered with depression, flashbacks and constant reminders of his mother’s death.
With the representation from a specialist medical negligence solicitor, Mandy Luckman, a five figure sum was achieved for the psychiatric injury sustained.