The family of a disabled man who died after a routine operation have been told they can finally have an inquest – a year after his death.
Timothy Cowen, who was unable to swallow food, died in May following a successful gall bladder operation at Wrexham Maelor Hospital. His family believe that medical staff fed him incorrectly – lying down at night and in contravention of his care plan – causing his lungs to fill with liquid feed and become infected.
North Wales AM Antoinette Sandbach has been supporting Mr Cowen’s brother Phillip and mother Berenice, 83, from Caerwys, in their battle to discover the truth.
This week – exactly a year since Timothy was admitted to hospital – the family have been told the inquest can finally go ahead. North East Wales Coroner John Gittins has been waiting for a report from Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board, following an internal inquiry.
The inquiry led to a Root Cause Analysis (RCA) , which looked at the circumstances leading up to 51-year-old Mr Cowen’s death, will not be made public until the inquest.
“We are pleased that Mr Gittins is now able to hold the inquest and so what happened to my brother in the days before he died will be made public,” said Philip Cowen, an architect who lives in Norfolk.
“We encountered serious obstruction from the BCUHB following my brother’s death, an experience that was most unpleasant and unprofessional. However, after sustained pressure from Ms Sandbach and others, BCUHB has kept the family informed of the progress of its inquiry.
“Having been a party to the process I feel that the inquest may well lead to new information being available in the public arena. It certainly won’t be the end of the road for my family. If the inquest concludes that there were failings in the care of my brother, I would hope those identified as responsible will be held to account.”
He added that the family were grateful of the support of Ms Sandbach in ensuring that the review into Timothy’s death was held by BCUHB, after the family’s initial complaints went unheeded.
Ms Sandbach said: “It is excellent news that the coroner can finally hold an inquest into Mr Cowen’s death, and I hope that this will highlight any failings in the care he received in his final days. His mother Berenice is elderly and frail and it is shocking that she has had to wait so long to discover what happened to the son she nursed for many years.
“This tragic case also highlighted that BCUHB had many other complaints about its standard of care, which were taking a long time to resolve. I hope with the new team that has been brought into lead the health board, such situations will no longer occur, but I still believe that a full inquiry should be held into the health service in Wales, given the number of problems identified by Ann Clwyd MP, as part of her own inquiry for the Prime Minister.”
Mr Cowen said his bother Timothy had encephalitis as a result of a whooping cough vaccination when he was nine months old. He later developed epilepsy and other medical conditions that meant he could not walk nor swallow. He lived at home until his mother, a former nurse, became too frail to look after him, following which he shared a house, Y Maes in Caergwle where he had 24-hour live-in carers.
Timothy was fed through a percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy (PEG) tube into his stomach, rather than by his mouth. Medical notes made it clear that this should be during the day and while he was sitting up. The feeding regime had previously been drawn up by a health board nutritionist based at Wrexham Maelor Hospital and his live-in carers and family pointed the notes out to hospital staff.
“Timothy was admitted to Wrexham Maelor Hospital on Tuesday 23 April 2013 for a routine operation to remove gall stones,” said Mr Cowen. “He was discharged and returned to Y Maes on 25 April. The staff at Y Maes became most concerned at his condition soon after and a GP visited him on the 27th but his condition had not stabilised and so took him into A&E the following day.
“It transpired that Timothy was struggling to breathe, and large quantities of ingested food and fluid was drained from his lungs, the majority in his right lung. This inevitably led to serious complications and extensive infections in his lungs, which we were advised had spread to other major organs and somewhat speedily.”
He was admitted into intensive care but died on May 2. The initial death certificate presented to the coroner gave the cause of death as aspirational pneumonia as a consequence of suffering cerebral palsy – which was a shock to his family.
An independent post mortem examination was carried out at the Countess of Chester Hospital at the request of the coroner, after the family expressed serious reservations about the initial cause of death. This concluded the initial finding was incorrect and that the cause of Mr Cowen’s death was bilateral extensive pneumonia.
Philip Cowen added: “To the best of our knowledge Timothy was never diagnosed with cerebral palsy and we are alarmed that this should have been stated. We have serious reservations about the cause of death or at least the factors leading up to Timothy’s death.”
He added when he tried to raise a complaint with BCUHB he was passed between offices in Wrexham and Bangor. “I was pushed around from office to office and nobody who represented the BCUHB was prepared to provide me with the information I sought.
“Then, when the health board finally answered me, they apologised for the ‘inconvenience’ of my bother’s death, and then said the next of kin had to sign a form so information about Timothy’s care could be released to me!”
