Yahoo News Gosport hospital deaths: families condemn 'scandalous' failings
Families of the Gosport War Memorial hospital victims have launched an excoriating attack on a system that held 12 separate investigations into the deaths yet held no one accountable.
“The inexcusable failure of them all is not only shameful, it is scandalous and it is immoral,” they said in a statement read by Bridget Reeves, whose 88-year-old grandmother, Elsie Devine, died at the hospital in 1999.
Their “vulnerable” relatives “were stripped of their final words to their loved ones, silenced by overdoses”. It was “more than catastrophic”, they said.
“As victims of crime, we are all entitled to have an explanation when an alleged injustice has occurred. But this has been sinister, calculating, and those implicated must now face the full rigour of the criminal justice system.”
“These horrifying, shameful, unforgivable actions need to be disclosed in a criminal court for a jury to decide. Only then can we put our loved ones to rest.”
They described the lockdown, for 11 years, of the release of findings of a 2002 inquiry, as “an abuse by powers of the mighty”. They added: “The Department of Health and its chief medical officer ignored those serious findings and continued to put patient safety at the bottom of the pile.”
They described as “at best incompetent” a Hampshire police investigation, triggered by a whistleblower providing 1991 documentation “highlighting a culture that Dr [Jane] Barton [the GP accused of prescribing deadly doses of painkillers to patients] had brought to the hospital”. The CPS’s failure to secure convictions was “devastating”.
Even more criticism was heaped on the inquests held into the deaths of 10 of the victims, with Barton and the nursing team afforded “top barristers” while relatives “had to fight for our legal representation coming onboard at the 11th hour”.
Documentation was “redacted or simply removed” to ensure jurors did not get the whole picture, the statement said. “And, whilst they [jury] did still manage to conclude that the drugs administered were inappropriate, without logic, unjustifiable and shortened life”, the relatives were angered that the jury concluded they were given for “therapeutic purposes”.
Of the “defective” GMC hearing, which did not strike Barton off the medical register, “that proved to us all that they are simply not fit for purpose”.
Relatives had been treated with contempt throughout, they said. “Every government body and or quango locked together, with no chance of objectivity, impartiality and, ultimately, the truth.” There had been “inequality of arms” to stop families achieving justice, and regulatory bodies appeared to “do whatever they want”.
Knowing that complaints had been made to the police in 1998 would have caused “outrage” if it had been made public at the time. “None of us would have allowed our loved ones to be admitted to Gosport War Memorial hospital had we known there was an ongoing police investigation.”
The victims
Elsie Devine, 88, Reeves’ grandmother, like others, died after the inappropriate administration of opioids, whose prescription was not in the best interests of the patient. She had been admitted for rehabilitation with kidney problems. Like many others she was “opioid-naive”, ie not chronically receiving opioid analgesics on a daily basis. She was given diamorphine and midazolam two days before her death in 1999. “My seven-stone grandmother, who did not have dementia and was recovering from a kidney infection, was pinned to the floor by four nurses and given enough drugs to lay out a 6ft violent man,” Reeves recently told the Sunday Times.
Gladys Richards, 91, who had dementia and lived in a nursing home, was admitted for rehabilitation on 17 August 1998 after fracturing her hip. She died four days later. Her daughter, Gillian MacKenzie, now 84, was the first relative to raise the alarm. “When I had contacted the police and said I wanted an appointment with somebody over an allegation of unlawful killing, I was told: ‘There there, my dear. You’re upset,’ she told the BBC. Fighting for justice had taken over her life.
Arthur Cunningham, known as Brian, 79, was a widower with Parkinson’s disease and dementia, but was admitted for treatment for a pressure sore in September 1998. The former wartime fighter pilot died five days later. “He went in to be treated for bedsores. There’s no way he was near death,” his stepson Charles Farthing told the Sunday Times. He was also opioid naive. He was given a threefold increase in pain relief three days before his death, the report said. The inquiry stated the hospital notes recorded relatives were anxious about the treatment.
Robert Wilson, 74, who died in 1998 was meant to be receiving rehabilitation after fracturing a shoulder, and was another the inquiry panel assessed had been administered opioids without appropriate clinical indication. He had told his family he was being drugged to death. “Help me, they’re killing me,” he begged his son Iain Wilson. “I said, ‘No they’re not, Dad. They’re trying to do the best for you,’” Wilson told the Sunday Times. “When I went in the following day, he was in a coma.” He added: “How I wish now I’d trusted my instincts and got him out.”
Stan Carby, 65, a former naval officer, died in 1999 within 24 hours of being admitted to rehabilitation following a series of mini-strokes. His daughter, Cindy Grant, said he was expected home in a couple of weeks and relatives had seen him at 10.30pm the night before, when he was in “good spirits”. The next morning he was in a coma. When they asked Barton if he was going to die, she said: “Well, you’ve got to just let nature take its course,” Grant told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. “He wasn’t in there to die. He was in there to get better,” said Grant.
Peggy Coates, 76, transferred from another hospital for rehabilitation after a stroke on 2 June 1999. She died on 15 July , on the day she was given the first and high dose of diamorphine, the report said. The plan had been for her to return home, it said, so it was not clear why, on her admission, Barton wrote in the hospital notes: “Please make comfortable … I am happy for my staff to confirm death.”
