Hospital failed woman who died after contracting two superbugs

1/3
12 April 2012

A hospital has been found guilty of failings in the care of a woman who died after contracting superbugs while in intensive care.

Doreen Levey's condition quickly deteriorated after she was admitted with a cough and diarrhoea to Queen's Hospital in Romford. She was later diagnosed with MRSA and Clostridium difficile and died shortly after.

The hospital, which has been locked in a dispute with the family of the 68-year-old for four years, has now been reprimanded for failing to address serious complaints they raised. The verdict comes just days after the Essex hospital was accused of poor standards of care over the deaths of two other patients. Lili Backhouse, who was 23 months old, from Rainham, died after doctors allegedly failed to spot that she had meningitis.

Laura Martin, 39, from Rush Green, died from an undiagnosed lung condition after she was sent home. She had waited to be seen for more than five hours as, it was alleged, doctors gave priority to "drunken revellers" clogging up the A&E department.

Mrs Levey's daughter, Pauline, said: "The overall treatment that my mother received was unspeakably poor. Queen's was a new, state-of-the-art hospital.

"Superficially it may have looked impressive, but underneath the shiny new exterior lay a poorly managed organisation with some staff that were not only incompetent but were incapable of following basic hygiene codes, standard operating procedures and Control of Substances Hazardous to Health regulations."

Ms Levey, 44, a biomedical scientist from Swanley in Kent who has worked for the National Health Service for 22 years, added: "The undignified, uncaring treatment that I witnessed has left a feeling of distrust, disgust and horror."

She said her concerns over the state of the hospital heightened when she saw what she believed to be various hygiene lapses and disciplinary offences when she returned to discuss her mother's case.

Then, when she visited her father at Queen's in December, she claims she saw someone else's bloodstains on the walls around him.

Mrs Levey, from Brentwood, died from septicaemia and bronchopneumonia after suffering breathing and kidney problems in April 2007.

The Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman has given the Barking, Havering and Redbridge Hospitals NHS Trust a month to supply the family with a full, written apology. It upheld Ms Levey's complaints and gave the hospital three months to outline how it will raise standards.

The trust's acting chief executive, Deborah Wheeler, said: "We have received the Ombudsman's report and will be writing to Ms Levey to apologise for the failings in responding to her concerns."

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in