Daughter told her mum died in hospital – but found different patient in her bed

A horrified daughter rushed to the hospital after receiving news that her mother passed away but discovered a shocking truth instead. Ruth Thomas, 52, experienced a distressing situation when she arrived at The Grange University Hospital in Cwmbran, Gwent, expecting to find her 83-year-old mother had passed.

She accused the hospital of a “lack of duty of care” after her mum, Kathleen, was admitted to the facility for a stomach bleed. Upon arrival, Ruth discovered a different deceased patient in her mother’s bed. She also criticised the hospital’s inadequate safeguarding measures regarding her mother’s poor hygiene and the unclean state of her room.

Approximately four weeks into Kathleen’s stay at the new NHS hospital, doctors contacted Ruth to inform her of her mother’s passing.

Ruth had been assured that she and her sister, Joanne, would be promptly notified if her mother’s condition worsened. The sisters were shocked to find a different woman in the bed when they arrived.

They had been wrongly informed due to a mix-up, leaving the real family of the deceased unaware at this stage.

Talking to the Mirror, Ruth who is affiliated with a children’s mental health charity, stated: “I didn’t recognise my mum and then my sister started to scream ‘that’s not our mum’… Outside the room, we repeatedly asked ‘where’s our mum?’

“Chaos ensued and the auxiliary nurse kept repeating ‘someone called the wrong family’ and it wasn’t her (Kathleen), totally ignoring my sister and I. As we left, there was still chaos between the nurses, no one had informed the other lady’s family at this stage and I am sure they weren’t informed what had happened to us.

“It’s a lack of respect for mum and the other woman’s dignity. When we were called to the hospital, it was because we were told our mum had passed, only to be taken to see another lady. We will never get over that experience, especially given the lack of empathy shown by most of the nurses on shift that evening. There was no sign of empathy or compassion… I complained about the neglect and the lack of duty of care.”

Ruth was already upset about a mistake, but she got even more frustrated when she found out that the same hospital gave another family the wrong body for their funeral.

On that occasion, the hospital said sorry and explained it was a “human error” that caused the mix-up, and the family had to have another funeral.

This all happened while Ruth was already telling the hospital they did something wrong. It made her feel worse about how safe things were there.

Ruth used to work in health and social care. She said: “It was shocking to read that, after going through what my sister and I did. The hospital were still making such shocking errors. The story of what happening to the other family is tragic and brings back the trauma we went through has a family and the irrational fears. I also wonder how many more families have experienced the same. Hopefully no more families do not have to go through the same horrific experience.”

The Aneurin Bevan University Health Board apologised for both mistakes and called what happened with Kathleen “an awful incident”. The Public Services Ombudsman for Wales is looking into the mistake too.

Ruth and Joanne, shocked and worried for their widowed mother Kathleen, lost trust in the healthcare system after her husband Brian passed away from pneumonia in a different hospital in January 2020.

They claim that the bin in their mum’s ward hadn’t been emptied for days, the ward hadn’t been cleaned for weeks, and medical waste was left under her bed.

They also allege that Kathleen was often left in her own urine as she needed to use incontinence pads after suffering a stroke in the hospital.

“Every time we visited our mum, we saw and reported ongoing safety issues, but they were never addressed. We saw that our mum’s personal hygiene wasn’t being taken care of her bed was wet and there was urine on the floor,” added Ruth, who lives in Tredegar, Gwent.

“The room wasn’t cleaned the home care team were told not to go into the room, and we kept getting different stories about our mum’s treatment.

“I kept telling the consultant, doctors and ward sister about my safety concerns.”

She added: “My sister and I started spending all our time with our mum, each doing 12-hour shifts because we were so worried about her safety.

“We both ended up taking more than six months off work because of the trauma we went through, which put a lot of emotional and financial pressure on us.”

Kathleen, who before she retired was a shop worker and a homemaker, sadly passed away in hospital on January 31, 2021, from complications relating to two tummy bleeds and a stroke.

This happened about six weeks after there was an error involving another patient.

Ruth has now bravely shared her story in the wake of news regarding another mix-up at the same hospital, which only started treating patients in November 2020.

She went on to say: “I’ve worked in the social health care sector and safeguarding all my life. There were safeguarding failures here and incompetence. There were urine stains on the floor – our mum needed to wear a pad because of the stroke, and often it was soaked and leaked onto the bed and floor when we went to visit.

“There were used materials hanging out of the overly-filled bin. This was a newly opened hospital by the then health minister Vaughan Gethin, at the time. The hospital wasn’t ready to be open in my opinion.”

Ruth and Joanne, from Tredegar, have been talking a lot with Aneurin Bevan University Health Board after a big mix-up. This led to a special investigation called Putting it Right and chats with the Public Services Ombudsman for Wales. The Mirror saw a letter where Rhiannon Jones, who used to be the top nurse at the Trust, said sorry for the mistake that was “clearly so distressing”.

She wrote: “I can imagine the stress and upset this has caused… Being incorrectly informed your mother had died and then being escorted to see her to find it was not your mother is inconceivable and I am very sorry this happened.” She also said sorry to the other woman’s family who were told wrong.

The hospital looked into what went wrong and learned from it. They made a plan to make sure they take better care of patients and keep things clean. They promised that this plan will make care better after people complained about how Kathleen was treated.

A person speaking for Aneurin Bevan University Health Board said: “We are deeply sorry that this awful incident occurred back in 2020, and our sincere thoughts remain with the family of Ms Thomas following her passing.

“Due to the seriousness of the incident, we have fully investigated this matter in accordance with our Serious Incident protocol, and the findings have been fully and openly shared with the family. The Public Services Ombudsman for Wales has also reviewed the circumstances surrounding this incident and has confirmed there was no requirement to investigate further.

“We have met with the family on a number of occasions to ensure we have addressed their concerns and to offer them as much support as possible, and we also put in place an action plan to improve aspects of Ms Thomas’ care and our communication with them.

“We would also like to reassure the public that this is an exceptional case that occurred on a ward, and did not relate to a mortuary. We would ask the family to contact us should they have any further concerns or queries.”