Bitten by a rat as he slept in bed at hospital
Defenceless patient given tetanus jab after attack
A VULNERABLE patient was bitten by a rat more than a dozen times as he lay sedated in an NHS residential hospital.
Nurses only realised what had happened when Jason Ketley stumbled down the corridor with the rodent hanging from his neck by its teeth.
They dislodged the creature and killed it, but Mr Ketley was left with about 12 deep puncture wounds where he had been badly bitten on his shoulder and neck.
When his parents called to check on him, they were told that the 42-year-old, who has learning difficulties, bipolar disorder and a mental age of two, had been bitten by a rat, although the hospital now insists it was a field mouse.
But his mother Patricia Boardman, 63, said: ‘As soon as I saw the bites I knew it had to have been a rat.
‘They were deep teeth puncture marks all over his shoulder. I couldn’t believe that there were rats running free in an NHS hospital. It’s absolutely disgusting.
‘He was heavily sedated when it happened, so God knows how long the rat was gnawing him. It must have been in his bed.’
Mr Ketley was attacked after going to bed for the night at a specialist care unit at St Ebba’s hospital in Epsom, Surrey, on November 20 last year.
He was taken to Epsom General Hospital the following day to have diphtheria, tetanus and polio vaccinations to protect him from disease.
Mrs Boardman, who worked at a solicitor’s
‘Cuts and scabs all over his shoulder’
office before retiring, said: ‘I couldn’t believe how bad it was when I saw him – there were cuts and scabs all over his shoulder.
‘He was completely defenceless and someone should have been keeping an eye on him because he has problems communicating and he suffers in silence.
‘If I kept my son in the conditions they keep him in, I’d have social services round and they’d put me in prison.’
The mother-of-two, who lives in Bognor Regis, West Sussex, with Mr Ketley’s stepfather Tom, 66, said she had made a formal complaint and was now considering suing the hospital.
Mrs Boardman added that she and her husband are trying to find a new Nhs-run site to move her son to.
She also said that the NHS trust had not yet responded to her complaint and was stalling for time.
At one stage, it even wrote to her to say it would have to consult Mr Ketley before accessing his medical records.
Mrs Boardman said that when she called the care unit, a member of staff answered the phone and told her: ‘ Something terrible has happened.
‘A rat bit Jason and he’s got marks on his shoulders.’
It was only when she phoned again later that the trust insisted it was a field mouse.
Field mice are herbivores and live on a diet of seeds. It is rare to see one and they are, on average, only a few centimetres long. Mrs Boardman added: ‘I’m so worried about leaving him there now.
‘They’re supposed to look after him but they clearly can’t be bothered.
‘I haven’t slept well since it happened and the worst thing is I don’t know how i t’s affected Jason because he can’t tell me. The staff at the hospital said it was long and had a long tail.
‘Now if that’s not a rat, I don’t know what is.
‘Jason wouldn’t have known what was happening as he was so drugged up.
‘Truth be told, it’s been a nightmare having him at this hospital.
‘They can’t work out what’s wrong with him and the drugs they give him make him worse, not better. They won’t even let me pay to bring in a private doctor to assess him and get a second opinion. I’m at my wits’ end.’
Jo Young, the director of nursing at the trust, said the incident was ‘genuinely shocking’ and that she was taking the family’s concerns ‘extremely seriously’. She added: ‘Our records indicate that a mouse was seen in the house in November and t hat pest c ontrol was alerted immediately but we are unable to provide a complete response to all the concerns raised until we know the outcome of our investigation.’