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'Appalling’: Alyson Jarvis and Shirley Ross have slammed their mum’s treatment.
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Why didn’t medics save this elderly woman?
by Kirsty Elleray26/ 3/2008
AN investigation is underway over claims hospital staff secretly issued an order not to save the life of an elderly Poynton woman.
The family of Doris Jarvis found the document in her medical notes after her death at Macclesfield Hospital.
They had been given the file after complaining about the ‘appalling and disgraceful’ care they claim the 82-year-old received.
It included a Do Not Resuscitate (DNR) order - also known as a Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation order - which they insist they had known nothing about.
The form had been partly filled in and signed by a doctor. But two other sections titled ‘discussed with the patient/carer’ and ‘nurse in charge’ were not filled in, signed or dated. A section titled ‘outcome of discussion’ was also left blank.
British Medical Association and Royal College of Nursing guidelines state that DNR orders should only be issued after discussion with patients or family.
Mrs Jarvis’s family say hospital staff admitted they did not try to resuscitate her.
Her daughter, Shirley Ross, has complained to the General Medical Council which is investigating.
Mrs Ross, 54, from Poynton, said: "My mother had mild lung cancer and we were assured she would not die in hospital.
"The Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation order lacks every necessary signature, other than that of the issuing doctor and there is no reference to it in my mother’s medical notes. When we asked if resuscitation had been attempted, the hospital said it had not."
Shirley’s sister, Alyson Jarvis, 51, who runs The Bee’s Knees gift shop in Poynton, added: "She went in a feisty, confident lady and she became frightened and vulnerable. It is a horror story."
East Cheshire Hospitals NHS Trust said: "The trust is unable to make any further comment on this case while this complaint is in progress other than to say it will co-operate fully with the GMC."
The family claims they discovered the DNR order when they initially complained that hospital staff had not told them Mrs Jarvis was suffering from the superbug clostridium difficile (c-diff) and e-coli, which they found out about when it was listed on her death certificate along with lung cancer.
The hospital had said there was no statutory obligation to reveal a patient had c-diff.
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26/03/2008 at 22:03