Stressed nurse used ketamine to cope with work pressures
A STRESSED nurse who took ketamine to ‘switch off’ from work died after being found unconscious on his sofa.
But mystery still surrounds Jay Murdoch’s death, with a post-mortem unable to determine the cause, leading a coroner to record an open conclusion.
Mr Murdoch, a nurse at Manchester Royal Infirmary, had been signed off work for up to six months due to anxiety and depression, but went back to work early due to staff shortages.
The inquest heard that despite plans by hospital managers for a ‘phased return,’ Mr Murdoch would work an extra five hours each shift – even when told to go home – and after he clocked off at 9pm would take the powerful horse tranquilliser recreationally, to help him ‘switch off.’
In March last year – after attending a wedding reception – Mr Murdoch, from Hulme, told his partner: ‘You would all be better off without me.’
Hours later he was found unresponsive on his sofa, having suffered a cardiac arrest which caused a severe brain injury.
He was taken to MRI, where he worked as a ward matron, but died six days later. Traces of various prescription tranquillisers were found in his system. Police investigated whether the tragedy was a ‘deliberate or accidental overdose’ but toxicology tests were unable to establish whether the drugs caused his death. Mr Murdoch – originally from Glasgow – had proclaimed himself ‘Proud to be a nurse’ and would post updates on his Twitter page about staff success stories and advances in medical treatment.
But his partner Gareth Chapman, a company manager, told the Manchester hearing: “Jay spent a lot of hours working and in late 2016 he was off for four to six months with stress, depression and anxiety.
“Jay would take ketamine as a coping mechanism to switch off from work quickly.”
Mr Chapman said the couple went to a wedding reception and an after-party on Saturday, March 26, last year where ‘recreational drugs were consumed in the form of two bumps of cocaine and we had a two-gram bag of ketamine but that wasn’t finished.’ They got home about 8am on the Sunday and the taxi driver and Mr Chapman helped get Mr Murdoch into the cab because he was intoxicated.
Mr Chapman said: “We were having a discussion about his work situation and Jay said ‘You would all be better off without me.’ This was unusual for Jay and I told him if his job was upsetting him so much that he needed to look for a different one.”
The following morning Mr Chapman said he was ‘unable to wake’ his partner. He called a neighbour, who was a nurse, and an ambulance was called.
Mr Chapman added: “Jay was always against suicide. A couple of months before we stopped someone jumping from a bridge and we knew a few people who had made attempts – he didn’t believe in it at all.” Toxicologist Dr Julie Evans said tests were carried out on blood samples taken from Mr Murdoch two days after his admission to hospital and whilst there was no ketamine or cocaine in his system, there were traces of the tranquillisers Temazepam, Diazepam and the sedative Chlordiazepoxide.
She added: “I cannot determine whether the level of drugs were excessive due to the time delay and therefore cannot provide a medical cause of death.”