WE NEVER THOUGHT WE’D NEVER SEE HER AGAIN
Family tell of anguish as 62-year-old gran dies four days after being taken to hospital:
AFAMILY of a woman who died alone on a coronavirus ward have described the terrible anguish of losing her, and of not being able to spend her final hours with her.
Yvonne Edwards was treated as a coronavirus patient as she had some of the symptoms, including pneumonia, but according to the family a test later found she did not have Covid-19.
The 62-year-old mother and grandmother was admitted to Ysbyty Gwynedd on March 31 and died four days later.
Her son Stewart said: “I absolutely adored my mother, as did my sister Kelly. She lived for us and her grandchildren.
“She was the type of person who would give you her last penny or the coat on her back.
“Despite her being so poorly with sepsis, pneumonia and COPD [chronic obstructive pulmonary disease], I never thought she was going to die.”
The 36-year-old dad said: “We said goodbye to her in the resus ward, but I never thought that was going to be it, that I would never see her again.”
Mr Heenan said he and his sister spent the next four agonising days regularly phoning Ysbyty Gwynedd to check on her progress.
Mrs Edwards had worked as a cleaner at Premier Inn in Caernarfon for 10 years, and was well known in the town.
“The worst thing was going to the ward to drop some clothes off for her and not being able to see her, but knowing she was a few feet away from me,” said her son last week. “Kelly and I can’t bear the thought that she died alone without her family with her, but we understand there was a nurse with her.
“We worry about the nurses and other hospital staff. What is all this doing to them? It’s such an awful time for everyone.
“We are burying my mother next Tuesday at Groeslon, but there is no church service. We are just to meet at the graveyard and then we will all have to part afterwards and go our separate ways until all this is over.”
The family launched a Go Fund Me page to raise money for Mrs Edwards’ funeral.