Inquest finds neglect contributed to woman’s hospital death

The death of a young disabled woman following a routine eye operation was partly caused by malnutrition as a result of neglect, a coroner has ruled.

Laura Booth, 21, was admitted to the Royal Hallamshire hospital in Sheffield in September 2016 for a routine eye operation. She died the next month, on 19 October.

Booth had a number of learning difficulties and life-limiting complications, having been diagnosed with partial trisomy 13, a rare genetic disorder, shortly after she was born.

Her mother, Patricia Booth, told the inquest that her daughter stopped eating shortly after she was admitted to hospital, and that doctors ignored Laura’s attempts to communicate with them.

She said her daughter consumed only rice milk and blackcurrant juice in hospital, and she kept telling doctors: “This isn’t right, she can’t survive on no food.”

The coroner, Abigail Combes, concluded that Laura Booth became unwell while a patient at the hospital and, among other illnesses, “developed malnutrition due to inadequate management for her nutritional needs”. Combes said that Booth’s death “was contributed to by neglect”.

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Source: The Guardian, 26 April 2021