Health board is sued over f lesh eating bug death
A WOMAN whose mother died after contracting a flesh-eating bug in hospital is suing the health board.
Sharon Boyle claims a ‘catalogue of errors’ led to the fatal infection and she wants to prevent other families from having to endure a similar tragedy.
Lorraine Dickson, 72, died in October 2011 after developing necrotising fasciitis – a bug which destroys soft tissue – at Wishaw General Hospital, Lanarkshire. Mrs Boyle, 45, claims a drainage tube was left in the pensioner’s abdomen too long – four days rather than six hours – and re-inserted after falling onto a bathroom floor at the hospital.
She says this resulted in Mrs Dickson, a cancer patient, contracting E.coli and subsequently necrotising fasciitis. Mrs Boyle, of Motherwell, Lanarkshire, is bringing a damages case against NHS Lanarkshire which is due to be heard at Hamilton Sheriff Court next month.
The mother of three said: ‘My mum has to have died for a reason, and if something changes for other patients then at least the pain and suffering she went through will have been worth something.’
Mrs Dickson, who had relapsed breast cancer, was admitted to Wishaw General in September 2011. The ex-nurse had malignant ascites, a build-up of fluid in her abdominal cavity, which was drained using a tube inserted through her side. Mrs Boyle said her mother seemed ‘very fit’ when she first went into hospital.
She added: ‘She was asking me to bring in Christmas catalogues so she could plan what presents to buy for her grandchildren.’
But Mrs Boyle claimed that after her mother developed the infection it ‘spread from underneath her right breast to the top of her thigh’.
She added: ‘I was told that if they had tried to remove the tissue surgically, it would have looked like a shark bite.’
NHS Lanarkshire denies liability for the death. Its lawyers
‘Pain and suffering’
say there were conflicting views on how to manage chest drains at that time, and in the absence of clear guidelines it cannot be blamed for negligence.
They claim it cannot be proven that the chest drain was the cause of infection.
Infections develop in around 20 per cent of cases involving ascites drainage. Infection does not mean the drain was incorrectly inserted.
Mrs Boyle said her mother ‘died from an infection which she should never have had’.
Gillian McAuley, Wishaw General’s chief of nursing services, said: ‘We are unable to comment on any civil legal action against NHS Lanarkshire in relation to this case as legal proceedings are ongoing.’