Horror at Larchwood Care! Grandmother with dementia died from face wound neglected by staff for days
GLASGOW, SCOTLAND: The family of an 89-year-old woman is seeking explanations after she died months after incurring terrible face damage while staying at a care home. Agnes Donnelly, a Glasgow's Broomfield Court Care Home resident, died a few months after an incident that left her face bloodied and damaged.
Although Donnelly, also called Nancy, died from pneumonia in January of last year, the home was shut down five months later, leaving Nancy's family wondering what went wrong. The home, according to her son Colin, 65, "didn't care for her in the way they should have done," and is adamant that Nancy was neglected, as per reports.
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'We are still very angry'
He further added, "We are still very angry about the awful conditions our mum must have lived in during the last year of her life." He added, "The home didn't care for her the way they should have done. When we visited, we could see she wasn't clean and she looked like she wasn't being looked after." Then he said, "Her injuries were first discovered by Nancy's daughter, Glynn, 69, on a weekly visit in October 2021."
Staff members were meant to check on Nancy, who had dementia, periodically, but none had mentioned seeing the injuries before Glynn's arrival. Colin then added, "When my sister visited and found her with those injuries on her face it was a big shock. But the care home manager told us they didn't know what had happened to her because nothing was reported," as reported by Metro.
'Failings with communication'
The family alleges that after the grandmother of 10 was admitted to the hospital for a physical examination, medical staff discovered several additional bruises on her body before blood tests revealed she was also dehydrated. Since the event, Larchwood Care has carried out an assessment of Nancy's care but later determined that their probe only showed "failings with communication". Social workers and the Care Inspectorate also started a joint inquiry into the incident, as reported by Dailystar.
Larchwood Care announced in June of last year that it was "not financially viable" to continue operating the home. Colin maintains that his family has been in the dark about what happened to their mother and was never informed of the investigation's findings. Colin said that "It constantly plays on my mind that we never got the answers we need and no one was ever held accountable for what happened to our mum."
'The loss of a much-loved family member'
"We understand Mrs Donnelly's family's concerns and acknowledge their considerable distress following the loss of a much-loved family member," a representative for Larchwood Care said. Glasgow City Council acknowledged that Broomfield Court Care Home was privately run and not a facility it had contracted with but stated that it was "aware of the concerns raised."
