Neglect a factor in nursing home deaths

THE DEATHS of five residents at a scandal-hit Welsh nursing home were contributed to by neglect, a coroner has ruled.

Assistant Gwent Coroner Geraint Williams recorded narrative conclusions for June Hamer, 71, Stanley Bradford, 76, Edith Evans, 85, Evelyn Jones, 87, and William Hickman, 71. He said a sixth resident, Stanley James, 89, had died from natural causes.

The inquest, in Newport, Gwent, heard the six died between 2003 and 2005 having been residents at the Brithdir nursing home, in New Tredegar.

Mr Williams gave a withering summary of a catalogue of failings – accusing managers of “dehumanising” and “warehousing” the elderly.

He accused the owners and staff at the home of a “gross betrayal of the trust” placed in them by the relatives of the residents by keeping them in the dark of the poor standards of care.

Mr Williams said the authorities should have taken more significant action against the home’s owner Dr Prana Das in 2004 as they knew about the deaths of Mrs Hamer and Mr Hickman and ongoing concerns at Brithdir.

Mr Williams condemned the ‘institutional abuse’ and ‘appalling neglect’ of residents and said: “It was a plain as a pikestaff that in October 2004 there was a serious risk to the life, health and wellbeing of residents at Brithdir.”

But he added: “In my judgment the state agencies were largely hamstrung by the legislation and the regulations in force at the time.”

He said Dr Das was only interested in making money, rather than caring for the elderly.

Dr Das was charged with health and safety and fraud offences, but before he could stand trial, he suffered severe head injuries during an aggravated burglary at his home. He died in 2020.