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NHS 'ALLOWED WAR HEROINE INHUMANE DEATH'

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Monday November 19,2007

By Jo Willey

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A TIRELESS worker for the Second World War effort died in agony because of NHS blunders, her family said yesterday.

Mary Emmerson was an Auxiliary Territorial Service veteran. But her family say she suffered an inhumane death at 84 because hospitals staff did not listen to how ill she really was.

The Daily Express’s crusade Respect for the Elderly is determined to eradicate such ordeals.

Mary, who joined the ATS at 18, was cremated six weeks ago on what would have been her 59th wedding anniversary.
Her husband James, 83, is “lost” without her.

One of her eight grandchildren Carly Parke, 25, said: “Grandma was very patriotic and put her total trust in her doctor. The NHS failed her.”

Mary’s big problems began last November. She had endured four heart attacks but then had her blood-thinning tablets taken away by her GP. Three weeks later, a stroke left her paralysed down one side.

She recovered and was back at the family home in Newcastle upon Tyne by Valentine’s Day, when her daughter Susan Parke, 50, and granddaughter Carly became her total carers.

In June they noticed a mark on her foot which worsened into gangrene. On June 17, Mary had a fit while suffering from pneumonia and was taken to South Tyneside district hospital.

The family say it took two weeks to have her fitted with a feeding tube, only to be told it was not cost-effective.

It was only then, her family say, that doctors noticed Mary’s foot had a type of gangrene and she was prescribed medication. Again Mary recovered well enough to come home and she was discharged on August 17.

But on September 14, daughter Susan found her foaming at the mouth. Her fingers were purple and, from her waist to her feet, her skin was mottled. An ambulance was called but she suffered two heart attacks in the house. Doctors said she she had contracted pneumonia again and septicemia and, as a result, her veins had collapsed.

On September 17, she died.

The local health trust’s medical director Dr Alan Rogers said: “There were no prolonged unnecessary periods without food and we have never withheld treatment on the grounds of age or cost.

“She was readmitted in September in a moribund condition due to an overwhelming pneumonia and this led to her unavoidable death.”

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