Hospital death patients given wrong medicine

THREE of 10 elderly patients who died at a hospital were given inappropriate medication, an inquest jury ruled today.

The panel of five women and three men spent four weeks at Portsmouth coroner's court looking at how the patients died at Gosport War Memorial Hospital in Hampshire between 1996 and 1999.

They ruled that in the cases of Robert Wilson, Elsie Devine and Geoffrey Packman, medication was not appropriate for their condition and symptoms but had been given for therapeutic reasons.

They also ruled that medication had contributed to the deaths of Elsie Lavender and Arthur Cunningham but had been given for therapeutic reasons and was appropriate for their condition.

The jury ruled that medication had not contributed to the deaths of the other five patients.

The families of those who died believe that sedatives such as diamorphine were over-prescribed and this led to the deaths of their relatives, who were receiving recuperative care.