Family angry at pensioner's care

THE family of a 95-year-old man who died after developing deep bedsores is considering legal action over the care he received in hospital.

Retired miner Ludwik Myslinski, of Cedar Road, Chesterton, was admitted to the University Hospital of North Staffordshire just days before Christmas 2011, an inquest heard.

At the time, he was very frail and underweight and was being treated for persistent diarrhoea. Medics had also noticed signs of a pressure sore on his body.

But his family claim they were left in the dark about the bedsores, which got rapidly worse over the subsequent days.

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The details only emerged after he was allowed back home as part of an 'end-of-life' care package.

Two days later, a concerned district nurse arranged for Mr Myslinski to go to Bradwell Hospital to receive treatment for the sores.

He died at Bradwell on January 29, last year.

Yesterday's inquest ruled that Mr Myslinski died as a result of natural causes.

North Staffordshire coroner Ian Smith said: "Do I think that there was poor nursing, sufficient to amount to neglect, at the University Hospital? No, I don't."

However, Mr Myslinski's family have now drafted in lawyers.

His daughter Theresa Swancott, of Chesterton, told The Sentinel after the hearing: "If he had been at home, he would never have been like that.

"When he was in hospital, they just put him in a room and left him."

She stressed the care he went on to receive at Bradwell Hospital was first-class.

A post-mortem examination showed Mr Myslinski died from bronchopneumonia. Contributory factors included dementia, Parkinson's Disease and the pressure sores.

Adrian Walker, a consultant physician at the University Hospital, first saw the pensioner on Boxing Day, four days after he had been admitted.

"He was clearly very frail and very thin," he said.

"I would have been very surprised if he had lived more than a few months from my initial assessment of him."

Mr Myslinksi was given intravenous fluids as part of his treatment. He was also placed on a special air mattress, and hospital records showed he was being turned over every two to four hours to help ease the sores.

But he was not referred to the hospital's tissue viability service for some days and ended up being seen by their specialist nurses on the day he was discharged.

Senior clinical nurse Sian Fumerola, manager of the tissue viability team, told the inquest his bedsores had 'deteriorated rapidly' by that stage. She concluded they had probably developed before his admission to hospital.

Pressure sores can be caused by a lack of mobility, incontinence, malnutrition, and dehydration.

The inquest was told Mr Myslinski had been suffering from 'multiple factors' and had been virtually bed-bound for months before his hospital stay.

Mr Smith said: "This is a gentleman who was coming, in my opinion, to the end of his life."