‘Union rules’ resulted in sick man’s death

A 40-YEAR-OLD man with mental disabilities was left to die by staff at a private hospice because it “wasn’t in their contractual duties” to provide him with medication after he developed pneumonia, the House heard yesterday.
Making matters worse, his one and only distant relative said she didn’t want a post-mortem, so the death went unnoticed – until yesterday when it was discussed at the House Institutions Committee.
Speaking after the session, Committee Chairman Rikkos Erotokritou of European Party EVROKO said it was unacceptable that mentally disabled people were falling victim to contractual, unionist or other interests, as well as to the “disgusting behaviour” of private hospice staff.
This behaviour, he added, was leading to patients dying from common and treatable ailments, without their deaths even being followed by post-mortems.
He referred specifically to the case of a 40-year-old man with mental disabilities, who caught pneumonia and according to the hospice’s register, no one administered the necessary medication. He did not reveal where or when the incident occurred.
“Those who had the moral duty to watch over him, assist him and give him his medication – invoking old unionist privileges and rights – didn’t give him the medical support the doctors had ordered, resulting in complications that eventually led to his death,” said Erotokritou.
“We feel it is unacceptable to invoke unionist rights or privileges or insufficiencies or lack of staff without any state control or guidance, which leads to people with mental disabilities dying because there wasn’t enough time, enough will or contractual obligation to give them their medication to deal with simple everyday ailments.”
A deeper probe into the matter, he added, had shown that the special register used at the hospice to list the medication administered to patients was not filled in on the night when the 40-year-old died.
The matter was nearly brushed under the carpet after the man’s sole distant relative didn’t give her consent for a post-mortem, as she thought the 40-year-old’s death had been from natural causes.
“But the post-mortem would have revealed another aspect of the case,” said Erotokritou. “The death may indeed have been due to natural causes, such as a heart deficiency, but the reason for these heart problems could have been connected to the pneumonia that was never treated.”
The shocking revelation led the Committee to request increased checks on private hospices, most of which are completely sponsored by the state.
DISY MP Andreas Themistocleous said the whole story was “unfathomable” to him. “I cannot reconcile with the idea that a 40-year-old man died and was buried without any examinations or a coroner being invited to carry out an autopsy.”
He said the only form of an investigation into the death came under a police report, which merely said the victim had no external injuries.
“The state has left private hospices to operate as they wish, without any supervision of those who have the responsibility for these people’s health, who are responsible for administering medication and who decide whether these people need to be taken to hospital,” said Themistocleous.