Christine Pulfrey remembers her mother as “very fit” and “in good form” when she was admitted to a private hospital in Hull for a routine knee operation. Complications arose after surgery, however, and the 86-year-old was transferred to the Royal Hull Infirmary where, according to her daughter, in February 2017 she was “deliberately deprived of hydration and food and was neglected”.
“When she died she looked as if she had been starved, like people who were starved in the concentration camps,” said Christine.
This anecdote is from one of 17 case studies included a report called When End of Life Care Goes Wrong, which will be published tomorrow by the Lords and Commons and Family and Child Protection Group in response to a growing number of complaints made by bereaved relatives to Voice for Justice UK, a campaign group.
All of the studies, drawn from a total of more than 600, which are described by the group as “the tip of the iceberg”, make deeply disturbing reading.
They also include, for instance, the case of a man called John, a non-terminal lung cancer sufferer who went to the Countess of Chester Hospital where he was injected with both morphine and midazolam, a lethal combination in a patient like him.
This injection, in the view of Sam Ahmedzai, the emeritus Professor of Palliative Medicine who offers medical analysis for each case study, was “directly responsible for the cessation of breathing” some 30 seconds later. He concluded that the family “were made to witness what they could only interpret as an act of involuntary euthanasia”.
The family called in their lawyers, intent on bringing about the prosecution of medics who might have killed John by a combination of drugs they knew to be lethal. According to the report, their efforts were thwarted by the appearance of medical documentation they say was fabricated but which was taken at face value by the police.
Another case concerned Laura Jane Booth, 21, who since birth suffered learning disabilities arising from Patau syndrome and Crohn’s disease. Her birth conditions made communication possible only through limited sign language, yet her family knew her as “kind and caring” and someone who “loved life”.
Laura was admitted to the Royal Hallamshire Hospital in Sheffield for a routine eye operation and died there three weeks later.
The NHS issued a death certificate attributing Laura’s demise to her conditions combined with pneumonia and respiratory failure from fluid on the lungs. Her family were convinced she was starved to death and fought for an inquest. They had to wait four-and-a-half years to get their day in court but the coroner issued a new death certificate which listed untreated “malnutrition” among the causes.
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