Nurse seemed ‘oblivious’ to patient’s decline
Healthcare workers who looked after burns victim Heather Bills have given conflicting accounts of what happened the night she suffered a fatal brain injury.
Bills died in 2013 while in the care of Middlemore Hospital in south Auckland, having survived a huge fire at her Orakei home six weeks earlier.
The 64-year-old was rescued from the explosive blaze with serious burns.
She died six weeks later on December 26, having suffered an irreversible brain injury after being given a large dose of insulin.
An inquest has heard conflicting accounts of what took place in the lead-up to her death.
Healthcare worker Sharon Connors yesterday told the inquest that her shift on the night that Bills died was dull and boring.
She claimed she remembered hearing the machines in Bills’ room beeping but said they weren’t an issue.
Bills’ daughter, Michelle Maher, questioned Connors by reading part of the statement of nurse Harmeet Sokhi, who also cared for Bills.
In her earlier statement, Sokhi described the noise of the machines in Bills’ room as being loud enough to be heard from the corridor outside her room.
‘‘When I got to Heather’s room I found that Sharon, the watch, seemed oblivious to the fact that three of the machines were beeping,’’ she said.
Sokhi said she was perplexed that Connors seemed to be unmoved by the loud beeping of the pumps.
Nirmala Salim took over care of Bills when Connors’ shift ended.
Connors said Bills was sleepy but well and did not mention the monitors going off earlier in the shift, Salim said.
But Salim soon noticed Bills’ heart rate was racing and that she was in pain.
‘‘I could tell she was different and I was concerned something was wrong,’’ Salim said.
Salim was capable of taking a blood sugar test and providing information to doctors, but was not told by the resource nurse to monitor Bills’ blood sugar levels.
The court had already heard how a nurse told doctors that Bills’ blood sugar levels were within normal limits.
Dr Lit Son Yoong was the registrar on duty when Bills’ condition deteriorated.
He told the inquest he believed he had asked for her blood sugar levels. ‘‘They told me her blood pressure and blood sugars were fine.’’ That information led the doctors to rule out the possibility Bills was having a hypoglycemic, or low blood sugar, episode, he said.
Bills was described by medical staff as depressed, non-engaged, and uncommunicative.
In her evidence clinical resource nurse Fiona Morse said she had heard Bills had banned all visitors, including her own daughter.
Charge nurse manager Vina Singh told the court Bills had constantly asked staff if she could die and if she’d done enough to die.