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Leeds hospital pays out after war hero is infected by superbug
HE was a proud veteran of the Normandy landings – but Kenneth Ballinger died in agony after an appalling lack of hospital care.
The 86-year-old Second World War veteran became infected with a superbug while in Leeds General Infirmary and then developed bed sores.
One was the size of a fist and others left his bones exposed.
The great grandfather had gone into hospital for observation but died in agony five months later, after the sores became infected.
Months later his wife Betty also passed away, heartbroken to have seen her husband of more than 50 years in such distress.
Now Mr Ballinger's family have been awarded 20,000 by Leeds hospitals for not doing enough to prevent the sores.
His devastated relatives are outraged at his treatment and are calling for an overhaul of nursing care for the elderly.
Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust admitted mistakes were made after Mr Ballinger's daughter Carol-Ann Knott started legal action.
The hospitals trust has now agreed an out-of-court settlement of 20,000.
Mrs Knott said: "He would have been better off to have just dropped dead.
"You would not see an animal suffering the way he did.
"For the last six weeks of my father's life he was in excruciating pain, day and night. He would scream every time he was touched as there was not a part on his body that didn't hurt.
"The nursing staff have a duty of care that they just didn't carry out."
Mr Ballinger had cared for his wife Betty, who was in a wheelchair, and had not been in hospital for 60 years until he was admitted to LGI in January 2006 after a fall at home in Beeston, Leeds.
The retired manufacturing chemist had no serious injuries but medics kept him in for observation.
After a few days, Mrs Knott was rung by a hospital worker asking if they could transfer her father to a ward with a known infection.
Astonished, she told the caller "absolutely not".
But when she visited her father later, Mrs Knott found him on that ward.
Nurses assured her it wasn't affecting the bay he was in.
Though he had been diagnosed with the early stages of dementia, doctors said he should be home soon.
However, days later he was infected with Clostridium difficile (C.diff), which causes diarrhoea.
Over the following weeks, Mrs Knott said she saw a catalogue of failures in her father's care, including him being left in soiled bedding and often going without food and drink.
He was so poorly that eventually his wife was too upset to visit.
"She said 'I cannot go and see him like that, I cannot bear it'," Mrs Knott, 52, said.
"She just could not cope and the last time we took her to see him she looked for all the world like she had lost everything.
"There was no dignity for either of them."
Mrs Knott said she was told that her father had developed bed sores but told they were being treated.
It was only when he was transferred to Chapel Allerton Hospital that she found out the extent of the wounds.
Later he was moved to a nursing home, where he was well cared for, and finally to Pontefract General Infirmary after developing blood poisoning.
By that time he was in agony.
Mrs Knott added: "I'll be forever haunted by his screams as my father was brought up in the lift at Pontefract Hospital.
"A doctor came and said: 'I have examined your father and if it was my father I would be asking questions. I have been able to fit my fist inside a deep wound.'
"He said 'I have never seen anything like this and I hope to never see anything like it again.'"
Mr Ballinger died on June 13. His wife died 20 weeks later.
Mrs Knott contacted Irwin Mitchell solicitors after her grief turned to anger over her father's treatment.
Gabrielle Ross, a medical law and patients' rights solicitor at the firm's Leeds office, said: "It is clear that there were multiple failures in the care provided to Mr Ballinger over several months, causing extensive pressure sore damage.
"As a result of these sores he would have found it almost impossible to lie comfortably and suffered a great deal of pain."
A spokesman for Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust said today: "We recognise that, regrettably, the measures to prevent Mr Ballinger suffering pressure sores did not meet the standards the trust strives to achieve.
"The trust accepts that mistakes were made and that these caused distress to Mr Ballinger and his family, and we have apologised for this.
"The trust is pleased that this claim has been resolved by way of negotiation between the parties."
The spokesman added that tackling hospital superbugs was a top priority and they had made "very significant" progress in cutting C.diff over the past year and were now within targets.
Earlier this week the YEP reported that 70 extra cleaning staff were being taken on by Leeds hospitals because they previously did not have enough to carry out the number of deep cleans they wanted to.
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Friday 25 May 2012
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