By Charlotte Webster-
Neglect contributed to the deaths of five residents at the scandal-hit Brithdir nursing home in South Wales were contributed to by neglect, a coroner has ruled.
Police uncovered evidence of “general neglect” when they investigated Brithdir nursing home, near New Tredegar, Caerphilly, the inquest on six residents aged in their 70s and 80s was told.
Dr Prana Das, who owned and ran the nursing home, faced charges relating to alleged failings in care before he sustained a brain injury during a burglary at his home and was declared medically unfit to stand trial. He died last year
Assistant Gwent Coroner Geraint Williams recorded negligent findings for June Hamer, 71, Stanley Bradford, 76, Edith Evans, 85, Evelyn Jones, 87, and William Hickman, 71.
He said a sixth resident, Stanley James, 89, had died from natural causes.
During a six week inquest in Newport, south Wales, the court heard that some Brithdir residents were suffering from dehydration, malnourishment and pressure sores when they were admitted to hospital.
Bradford’s daughter, Gaynor Evans, told the inquest that when she saw her father without his clothes on he looked like a prisoner of war.
Jones’s granddaughter, Ruth Phillips, said she was shocked when she saw a pressure sore on her grandmother’s back. “This sore had an open wound about the size of a five-pence piece. Within this wound I could see what I thought was bone,” she said.
The inquest in Newport, Gwent heard the pensioners all died between 2003 and 2005 having been residents at the nursing home in New Tredegar.
In a lengthy summing up, Mr Williams delivered a damning verdict of a catalogue of failings, accusing managers of “dehumanising” and “warehousing” the elderly.
He accused the owners and staff at the home of a “gross betrayal of the trust” placed in them by the relatives of the residents by keeping them in the dark of the poor standards of care.
Mr Williams said the authorities should have taken more significant action against Dr Das in the autumn of 2004 as they knew about the deaths of Mrs Hamer and Mr Hickman and ongoing concerns at Brithdir.
“The level of extreme concern voiced in the meeting of October, the finding at that meeting that residents were subject of institutional abuse, the fact of the deaths only months earlier of Mrs Hamer and Mr Hickman, the evidence of years of continued identical failings, all demonstrate the risk to residents was serious,” Mr Williams said.
“I don’t doubt that the external agency assistance that was in place played in a part in reducing the level of risk.
“However, it did not diminish that level to a point at which it could be said it was a risk and not a serious risk.
“It is not without significance that Mr Bradford, Mrs Evans and Mrs Jones were to die in the following year have suffered from the most appalling neglect at the hands of the staff at Brithdir in very much the same circumstances of concern identified in the meeting of October 2004.“In my judgement it was a plain as a pikestaff that in October 2004 there was a serious risk to the life, health and wellbeing of residents at Brithdir.
“I accept there were other considerations which would have informed the decision whether or not to take the urgent cancellation procedure route, at least the effect on existing residents.”
He added: “I do find the decision not to institute the urgent cancellation route was a missed opportunity to act to protect the residents of Brithdir.
“In my judgment the individuals concerned and therefore the state agencies were largely hamstrung by the legislation and the regulations in force at the time.