Family of former miner say he looked like an inmate in a prisoner of war camp
THE family of Brithdir care home victim Stanley Bradford say they will continue to live with the guilt of believing they could have done more to ease his suffering.
Former miner Mr Bradford died aged 76 in September 2005 just three months after moving to the Brithdir nursing home.
His family said he was so neglected by staff that he was left looking like an inmate in a prisoner of war camp because of malnourishment.
His daughters Pam Cook and Gaynor Evans described the evidence they heard over the last few weeks as harrowing.
“We’ve been waiting a long time, all these years and this has been hanging over us like a black cloud,” Mrs Cook said. “We have always felt we wanted some form of justice and we needed to hear the truth of what happened to our loved ones.”
Mrs Evans said: “We always carried a lot of guilt with us, but knowing what we know now and listening to all the evidence and what went on, we knew there was nothing more we could have done. He was let down by all the different agencies.”
Mrs Evans’ daughter, Haley, said: “We know there were problems since 1995 and that’s all been swept under the carpet.
“When we were choosing the nursing home never once did the social worker tell us it was Dr Das’ home, never once did she tell us the home was in trouble and placed under an embargo and under investigation by the Care Inspectorate Wales.”
Mrs Cook said: “We knew he didn’t have a good name or a good character. He was a doctor only a few miles from where we lived, and we knew his reputation and we wouldn’t have, on that basis alone, let dad go in there.
“Listening to the inquest we’ve shed a lot of tears and had a lot of upset but besides that it has made us very, very angry.
“This was left to go on and no-one stopped it, and everyone blames each other. At least now we know exactly what went on in there. We
know they failed him from the top to the bottom.”
Her sister said: “I think someone should have gone to prison, especially Dr Das. He got away with it all.”
A second grieving family feared another nursing home scandal could happen as financial problems caused by the Covid-19 pandemic hit the care sector.
Edith Evans, 85, died in hospital in September 2005 having been a resident at Brithdir nursing home.
She had been so poorly neglected by the nursing home that hospital staff were shocked by her condition.
Mrs Evans, who did not have any children, was survived by her niece Gail Morris and twin sisters Gaynor and Betty Williams.
They sat through weeks of evidence at Gwent Coroner’s Court and were shocked at what they learnt, as they had believed that after 15 years of campaigning, a police inquiry and an independent Welsh Government review they knew everything.
“We were horrified. There’s more come out and we thought we knew everything, we knew so little,” Gaynor Williams said.
Mrs Morris said: “We didn’t think we could learn any more but we have, none of it good.
“I think we have been angry since October 2005 when Edie went into hospital and that’s when we found out how bad things were.”
They said they learnt their aunt had contracted MRSA twice and safeguarding meetings were held to discuss her care.
Like other families they only found out Dr Prana Das ran Brithdir after the death of Mrs Evans.
“The exact same thing happened to us when they said Aunt Edie was going into Brithdir and we said ‘didn’t Dr Das own it’ and they said ‘no, he’s not there now,’” Gaynor Evans said. “I can remember them saying he didn’t have it then when she went in.”
Mrs Morris’s husband Kelvyn said Dr Das should never have been allowed to take over Brithdir in 2002 as he was well known to the authorities. “It has been one of the big things our barrister Ben Summers brought up. There were all these problems, yet the authorities kept registering him for new homes,” Mr Morris said.
“He’d use a different company name and the authorities had little teeth to stop him. The fact there was institutional abuse in so many places – probably more than the homes we are looking at – and yet they were happy to place residents there.
“What got me was the comment from Merthyr Council social services who put an embargo on any of their residents going anywhere near Das homes. Yet the Caerphilly County Borough continued to place residents there. Is that damning?”
Mr Morris said Operation Jasmine looked at the deaths of 106 elderly residents at homes in South Wales and there have since been changes to the care system.
“It is still not perfect, but I think it is a far better regime now. As long as they keep learning and not standing still then we will be OK,” he said.
“The line last week was, ‘We believe it won’t happen again.’ It will, I hope it doesn’t take as many deaths to make that change again.
Mrs Morris said: “It would be nice to say it won’t happen again, but I think it could easily happen again.”