Patient given sandwich choked to death as her false teeth weren’t in
A GRANDMOTHER who survived cancer died after choking on a sandwich when NHS staff failed to notice she did not have all her false teeth in.
Lilian Hugill’s family received a fivefigure payout after she was given an egg sandwich with crusts instead of soft food at York Hospital.
Staff then failed to notice that Mrs Hugill, 84, who was suffering from a urinary tract infection, was not wearing her bottom set of dentures so was unable to chew her food.
The pensioner had battled other illnesses including bladder cancer and her family say they will always struggle to come to terms with how she died, in April 2014. Mike Garbutt, 63, from Thorganby, near York, her son-in-law said: “How can someone be admitted to hospital with a basic urine infection and this happen? Lilian was let down at a time of life when people most need good healthcare.”
Lawyers acting on the family’s behalf said staff had been prompted to ask Mrs Hugill about her teeth in the hospital’s paperwork and the trust had admitted that had appropriate care been provided she would not have choked. Tasmin White, solicitor, said: “This is a really tragic and upsetting case and one where had the very basic standards of care with regards to treating elderly and vulnerable patients been followed, this lady would not have died.”
They said she choked on the sandwich and suffered a heart attack and starvation of oxygen to the brain, which led to bronchopneumonia – an inflammation of the lungs. Mrs Hugill, a former print manager at the University of York, died a week later.
A spokesman for York Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust said: “A settlement has now been agreed in this case. We regret the circumstances of Mrs Hugill’s death and we are sorry for the impact this has had on her family.”