Obese patient who once took up four NHS beds dies at 37
Football fan Matthew had sepsis & organ failure
ONE of football’s biggest fans has died – 55-stone Matthew Crawford.
The Rangers and Lincoln City supporter had joined Slimming World in a bid to lose weight after he once took up an entire four-bed bay on a ward because he was too obese to move.
However it has emerged that the 37-year-old died last week from sepsis and organ failure.
There was uproar in 2018 when the Mirror revealed his care had been costing King’s Mill Hospital an estimated £40,000 a month.
It was claimed he ordered pizzas and Chinese takeaways to eat on the ward – something he denied.
A year later he was discharged from the Nottinghamshire hospital to a specially adapted care facility.
Matthew was convicted in 2018 of assaulting four nurses at a care home near Newark, Notts, and ordered to pay compensation.
His solicitor Michael Little told magistrates he was too heavy to attend the hearing.
Bed-blocking costs the NHS millions of pounds a year. Matthew, from Newark, was first admitted to King’s Mill Hospital in May 2018 and ruled fit for discharge two months later.
But as there was no appropriate social care space for him to move into, he could not be forced to leave. His reinforced bed cost the NHS £7,000 a week to rent.
Matthew, who appeared on Trisha, once posed holding a bottle of champagne in a care home, and wrote: “If people tasted the food in this place you’d know why I buy my own food.”
His mum Linda Belshaw refused to comment about his death yesterday.
If people tasted the food here you’d know why I buy my own
MATTHEW CRAWFORD WHILE IN A CARE HOME