The daughter of a man with dementia who died after being pushed by another patient in a care facility, has said her family has been let down by authorities.
John O'Reilly died a week after sustaining a head injury at a dementia care unit in County Armagh. The 83-year-old was pushed twice by the same patient in the days leading up to the fatal incident. His family were not made aware of this until after his death.
On 4 December 2018, Mr O'Reilly was pushed by another dementia patient causing him to hit his head off a wall. His family have said he was pushed with such force that it left a dent in the wall. He was admitted to Craigavon Area Hospital with severe head injuries and died a week later.
Last week, an inquest heard that the dementia patient who pushed Mr O'Reilly had a history of aggressive behaviour linked to dementia.
The Southern Trust is carrying out as Serious Adverse Incident (SAI) investigation into Mr O'Reilly's death.
Maureen McGleenon said: "Our experience of the SAI process has been dreadful. In our view it allows the trust to park the fact that something catastrophic has happened to a family. We were told it would be a 12-week process. It's over a year now and we've expended so much energy trying to figure out this process and find things out for ourselves."
She added: "The system just knocks you down and makes you want to give up."
"We'll never get over what happened to dad and we can't give up on trying to understand it."
Source: BBC News, 20 January 2020
Recommended Comments
Create an account or sign in to comment