Dad in hospital with back pain caught fatal Covid dose
A ‘DEVOTED’ family man caught Covid-19 in hospital and died, weeks after being admitted with severe back pain.
A consultant from Stepping Hill Hospital in Stockport told an inquest that the virus “most likely” came from a staff member who did not know they had it.
South Manchester Coroner’s Court heard Malcolm Garrett, of Marple Bridge, had received a lung transplant eight years earlier and as a result was immunosuppressed.
After the 61-year-old’s death, a senior coroner has vowed to write a prevention of future deaths report to the Health Secretary, to try and ‘avoid and minimise the risk of immunosuppressed transplant patients in acute settings.’
The inquest heard on July 31 2021, Mr Garrett started to complain of a bad back. When things got worse on Monday (August 2) his wife Yvonne rang his GP. After being told there would be a two or three hour wait for a telephone consultation, Mr Garrett asked his wife to ring an ambulance.
“If Malcolm could keep out of hospital, he wouldn’t go in so for him to volunteer... it was the first time I’d known it,” she said.
“He left the house at half past five on Monday evening and never came home again.”
Upon being admitted at Stepping Hill Hospital, it was discovered Mr Garrett had a wedge fracture of his T9 vertebra in his spine.
The inquest heard that this was likely to have been caused by osteoporosis - a side effect of the steroids that Mr Garrett took following his lung transplant.
He was fitted with a brace to help manage the pain from the fracture but it led to respiratory problems and it was eventually removed.
Instead, Mr Garrett was given codeine and morphine.
Following that he suffered opiate toxicity when one of his kidneys “stopped working” then developed pneumonia.
Towards the end of August, Mr Garrett was ‘stabilising,’ Dr Alexander Tempowski, a respiratory consultant at the hospital, said.
On September 19, he tested positive for Covid-19, which Dr Tempowski admitted would have been caught in hospital and that it was ‘most likely from a staff member who didn’t know they had Covid.’
Mr Garrett was moved to a Covid treatment ward but died on September 23.
Recording a narrative conclusion, senior coroner Alison Mutch said: “He died from Covid-19 while an inpatient that was contributed to by the complications of a lung transplant.”
After the hearing, Mr Garrett’s family said: “He was devoted to his family and we’ve just lost such a big part of our life.”