Warning: This article contains content which some readers may find distressing
A woman has claimed her dad died ‘gasping for air’ after the wrong breathing tube was allegedly connected.
Rose Sunners’ dad, Ronnie, was admitted to hospital on 8 January when he was struggling to breathe due to his chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).
On previous visits, because of this, staff would treat any episodes with steroids but on this occasion, the 71-year-old was reportedly so worried that he asked his daughter to drive 200 miles from London to Preston to be with him.
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The 34-year-old says Ronnie spent hours in a corridor at Royal Preston Hospital’s A&E before being moved into a room. But here, she claims he was given a nebuliser he couldn’t use due to breathing troubles and was ‘ignored’ by staff.
Rose says he was ‘gasping for breath’ and begging his daughter ‘over and over’ to ask for help.
However, the mum-of-two claims she was told Ronnie ‘wasn’t poorly enough’ for staff to intervene.
When he was finally taken to resuscitation, Rose says a nurse then admitted she hadn’t seen this type of tubing before, and was ‘trying to figure it out’ before placing the breathing mask on him. After half an hour of repeatedly trying to take the mask off, Ronnie fell unconscious and stopped responding.
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He then died hours later on 10 January, with his death certified as due to natural causes.
“Royal Preston Hospital ruined our last memories with our dad,” Rose said. “All we saw was a scared man with tears in his eyes and the last words we heard him say was ‘I'm going to die if they don't help me’.”
Days after his funeral, Ronnie’s family got a call to say there had been an error with the tubing and an investigation had taken place.
Lancashire Teaching Hospitals offered their condolences and ‘apologised unreservedly for the experience’ and ‘delays in communication’ and said they welcomed independent scrutiny from the coroner, which they vowed to ‘learn from’.
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Rose explained: “I could see the nurse was trying to jigsaw puzzle this tubing together. I said ‘Do you even know what you're doing?’
“She looked at me with a smile on her face and said ‘We've never seen this type of tubing before, we're just trying to figure it out’.”
She added that she is ‘haunted’ by her dad trying to pull the mask off, as staff told them to move his hands away as the ‘machine was going to help’.
“But now I can't stop wondering, ‘Was he trying to take it off because he actually couldn't breathe?’” Rose said.
‘Fully aware that mistakes happen’ as a registered care manager herself, she is disgraced by the delay in it being reported.
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“They had a duty of candour, they should have told us there and then the mistake had happened and then we could have at least then prepared as a family, but they didn't,” Rose explained.
“The wrong tubing was used and, from what I know, there's no exhalation port on these tubes meaning my dad would have consistently breathed his own carbon dioxide in.”
She said the errors ‘were clearly avoidable’ as she calls for new protocols and more training.
“What hurts us even more is that the hospital's report claims that before resus he was given a litre of oxygen, this isn't true,” Rose continued.
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“When Dad's final moments came, the lack of dignity was unforgivable.”
A Lancashire Teaching Hospitals spokesperson said: “We offer our sincere condolences to the family and friends of Ronald Sunners and unreservedly apologise for the experience in January. We also apologise for delays in communication which have caused additional distress.
“An internal investigation has now concluded and Mr Sunners' family have been assigned an experienced colleague who has taken them through the findings of this and will keep in touch with the family to ensure any further questions and feedback can be meaningfully heard and responded to.
“We welcome the independent scrutiny of the Coroner and are fully committed to applying any learning identified from both the investigation and any future inquest.
“Feedback from patients and their families about the care and treatment they receive is important and we would always encourage patients or their families to contact our Patient Advice and Liaison Service (PALS) to discuss any concerns they have, so that any issues can be resolved as soon as possible.”
Jess Battison