Charity Workers Chat with Dead Woman, Then Leave

Reuters ^ | November 14, 2002

[Willie Green]

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use.

LONDON (Reuters) - Two British mental health workers visited a woman patient, chatted with her, and then left without realizing she was dead, newspapers said on Thursday.

An inquest heard the workers from the mental health charity Mind let themselves into the home of paranoid schizophrenic Patricia Harris and found her sitting in the kitchen with the curtains drawn and her back to them.

After saying hello, they tried talking to Harris, 43, but when she failed to respond they left, the Daily Mail reported. "She didn't seem to want us there," health worker Helen Redmond was quoted as saying.

The next day, two other health workers on a follow-up visit discovered she was dead.

[HEY4QDEMS]

I guess she'll be needing an absentee ballot!

[Xenalyte]

One of my best friends clerked at a medical-malpractice firm, and they defended a nurse who - well, you've heard of Coke-bottle glasses? Her glasses were as thick as the bottle itself, not just the bottom.

This virtually blind nurse was making night rounds, and when she visited one patient, he had shuffled off this mortal coil; she failed to detect it, and wrote on his chart that he was "resting peacefully."

Which he was, I guess.

[Willie Green]

Which he was, I guess.

If he had already kicked the bucket, what was the basis for the lawsuit?
It's not as if she was capable of raising the dead.

(Granted, I doubt that I'd want her caring for ME, if my life was hanging by a thread. But an incompetent act after the fact doesn't seem like very weighty evidence.)

[Xenalyte]

Actually, if memory serves, it was the hospital that was being sued; this woman was one example of the caliber of staff they hired. During the depo I saw, she didn't seem to think she was in much trouble personally. (But then, the Coke-bottle glasses were obscuring most of her face.)

[Willie Green]

Actually, if memory serves, it was the hospital that was being sued;

Well it certainly isn't a surprise that sometimes people die in hospitals.
But then I suppose a lot depends on the severity of the patient's original malady.
There's no way to render judgement without additional detail.
But the way you describe this nurse as being representative of that particular hospital's staff, it certainly doesn't inspire much confidence!

[Sweet_Sunflower29]

"She didn't seem to want us there," health worker Helen Redmond was quoted as saying.

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

in search of a towel now to wipe the PEPSI off of the monitor...

[Sweet_Sunflower29]

Did you see this one?

:)

[johnb838]

In a personal care home where my Mother stayed for a while, there was a very sweet old man who had lost the capacity to speak due to cancer. He had lost a great deal of weight as well and one day the workers got him up out of bed and walked him to the kitchen table. They tried really hard to get him to drink his orange juice but he just wouldn't try to help at all. When the relief worker came in she informed the others that he had passed. Mom didn't stay in that home too long after that.

[RightWingMama]

You have got to read this!!! LOL

[valkyrieanne]

A Mind is a terrible thing to waste.

Unless you do it right...

[Mr. Silverback]

I see dead people...and they're in Britain.

[Billthedrill]

I've had dates like that, but I always assumed they were faking it so I'd pick up the check...

[Contra]

They helped her about as much as they would have had she been alive. By the way, the dead woman, Patricia Harris, that's not Jimmy Carter's HUD Secretary, is it?

[BSunday]