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October 13, 2024
HEALTH secretary Jeremy Hunt has ordered an inquiry and spoken of his revulsion after being shown pictures of an elderly woman bitten 50 times by a rat in a care home.
Mr Hunt announced the probe after Whitehall officials raised the case of bedridden Pamela Hudson, who her family say was gnawed by a rodent as she slept at Glen Lodge, in the Heworth area of York.
The 75-year-old great-grandmother, who was from the city, was left covered in blood after the incident on June 19 and was taken to York Hospital, but died three months later at St Catherine’s Nursing Home, in Shipton-by-Beningbrough.
Mr Hunt said: “These pictures are appalling and show the suffering of a vulnerable woman who, along with her family, was stripped of her dignity and badly let down.
“Working across Government, ministers are ordering an investigation which will be launched in the coming days.
Whatever the sort of social care provider, people have a right to expect the highest standards, and that is what we are determined to secure.”
City of York Council, which runs the care home, investigated the incident, but Mrs Hudson’s daughters, Jan Derry and Sallie Wilkinson, said they have received no apology and had been told it will never become clear whether the bites contributed to her death.
Mrs Derry, from Heworth, said: “They are not admitting responsibility. They are not saying how it got in. They are shirking any responsibility.
“Since my mum died, they’ve got pest control at Glen Lodge.
“If you’re living in sheltered accommodation and you’re bed ridden, you need to be looked after.
“When you looked at her arm there was no top level of skin in sections. It was not just a bite, it was as if it had been chewed off.
“As if you were eating a corn on the cob and you gnawed along it.
“It shouldn’t have happened, but it did. We just want people to be aware that things like this can happen.”
“Obviously we are still very distressed about it, but we have come to the end of the road with it,” she said.
“We have done all we can for our mum, but we are not ready to bury her ashes yet.”
Martin Farran, director of adult social care at the council, said: “It is with regret that, despite extensive efforts by professional experts, environmental health and independent inspectors, we have been unable to determine the exact circumstances of how Mrs Hudson’s injuries occurred.
“Our thoughts are with Mrs Hudson’s family, who are understandably distressed by what has happened.”
Source The Northern Echo