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Papworth NHS Trust - Certified Dead Introduction Certified Dead was written for a GCSE Exam. It was a real life narrative written from the eyes of a 14-year-old child who found her grand father dead in an acute cardiac ward at Papworth NHS Trust. Papworth’s website states “Papworth is a very special place, made so by extraordinary people who work, coach, teach, treat and are treated here everyday”. Was this a special place for this 14 year old? The nursing staff had not noticed that their patient had been dead in his bed for a fairly long period as evidenced by the nature of the cloudiness in the dead man’s eyes. Papworth NHS Trust has stated that this lack of monitoring is acceptable in an acute cardiac unit for a seriously ill patient awaiting theatre. An article in the local paper on this case quoted the family '"nursing staff thought a monitor showed that her father was alive when in fact it was reading his pacemaker. She said her father had been dead for 30 minutes before he was found by members of the family, including two children". She told The Hunts Post: "Our main concern is about the standard of care and the MRSA treatment and monitoring. There were delays in the treatment of infection despite clinical signs”' Recently, Papworth NHS Trust has been in the news due to high death rates in its transplant patients. Some time after the death of the person below and despite the Trust being informed of their problems in monitoring, Papworth NHS Trust once again found itself under fire for the death of Desmond Cox. Dr Colin Lattimore, deputy coroner, said Mr Cox probably would have survived for longer if the arrest had been discovered earlier. He said: "Tragically it was unrecognised for a period of time. How long, we cannot be certain, but it was sufficient to cause a lack of oxygen to the brain and caused irreversible brain damage.” He recorded a narrative verdict which attributed death to a delay in recognising the cardio respiratory arrest. The essay featured below was given A* for the description that showed the manner in which a 14 year old saw this traumatic situation. Papworth NHS Trust declined to comment and has not acknowledged the serious problems within their Trust. It should be noted that in a high profile, well-equipped cardiac unit, no child should find their relative dead in their bed. Papworth NHS Trust though has found it acceptable for this to happen. CERTIFIED DEAD Sunday December 11th 2005 was a day I will never forget. It had been a miserable morning. The clouds arched much like a quilt over us on that cold winter’s day. The rain began to break through the clouds intermittently. The unusual silence within my family indicated there was a sense of fear. For me it was the fear of the unknown. The fear that I could see in my family’s eyes but was not explained to me. I looked through the window in our ground floor shelter to see the rain drops settle. Later I was to witness the agony of an end. An end that brought a long river of tears into my family’s lives. A tiny lower ground flat had been hired in an emergency to house us all while my grand father was taken to hospital. We lived there for one week, leaving our homes far behind. It seemed like a lifetime. Papworth, Cambridgeshire was in the middle of nowhere. The town had a few shops and houses but compared to our town, it seemed desolate and almost haunted. It was almost a ghost town. It was as if we had moved back in time to a land that did not have modern conveniences. We all huddled in the small flat and lived together for all the days we needed to. I felt like Anne Frank, trapped in a small place where we had to entertain ourselves. The flat had two bedrooms, a bathroom, kitchen and sitting room. The place was temporary fix; it was not a horrible flat, but it certainly wasn’t home and we made the best of what we had. One o’ clock, lunch was served just as my mother walked through the door. She had no expression on her face and no lipstick. The dark circles under her eyes told us the tale of the night before. My grandfather was taken care of night after night by my members of my family. There was something about an MRSA infection and an argument about what was to be done. I never quite grasped the full story – the adults were too busy to explain. The exhaustion and lack of sleep over the previous two weeks hung over their heads like a time bomb waiting to explode. “Twenty minutes” my mother said as my aunty gave her a plate. There was no time to enjoy a meal, that’s what it had come down to. Sure enough, lunch was swallowed at an alarming rate, but it didn’t stop that twenty minutes turning quickly into an hour. Two o’ clock and my mother, father, brother, grandmother and I entered the hospital. It was a small hospital, not what I had expected. We’d planned to visit the ward before beginning the long journey home. I’d been to that hospital several times that week, but this time felt colder and more clinical. The dreary cream walls and stench of disinfectant were the same, but as we walked towards the cardiac unit, my stomach sunk towards the ground. It was a feeling I had never experienced before. Room 5 was near the front desk. My grandfather had been moved there on the previous Wednesday. We had heard the rumours that circulated about this small box room. People said that once you were in there, it was unlikely you would come out. It was the hospital’s quarantined section, where they sent the diseased, just like infected animals on a farm. Except that these were people; patients; my grandfather. All of which had caught MRSA. We entered the ward and saw a cleaner mopping the room. A cleaning trolley loomed outside the door and I stood adjacent, peering into the room. My grandfather appeared to be sleeping, so we stopped and waited. I stared at him. His soft brown eyes were half shut and his mouth gaped a little open. I looked harder and that same uneasy feeling festered inside of me. He was not sleeping, I knew that, but I didn’t want to admit it. In a bid to reassure myself, I moved along the corridor so that my view crossed the heart monitor. Phew, the line was still moving and I pushed that feeling aside. Five minutes waiting flew by and the cleaner finally came out of the room. My mother and I entered first. She went to the left side of the bed and I to the right. Another long hard look at the monitor, 60 beats, but my discomfort did not leave. I turned without a sound, afraid of disturbing him. “Daddy?” was the next thing I heard. No response. “Daddy?” the voice said again. No response. Third time required a gentle shake on the shoulders and a tone of discomfort. No response. I watched my mother’s hand move slowly toward his eyes. We both saw it. Clouded emptiness; no longer those soft brown eyes that had lighted every room they entered. There was no smile that had always greeted me. She screamed whilst I was paralysed. “He’s gone! He’s gone!” echoed straight through my ears. Shock had stunned me and I stood still for many moments. “He’s gone… John, call Jane! Call Mary ! ...He’s gone!” sounded in the distance. A nurse entered. A button was pushed and a loud blaring sound suddenly woke me from my trance. I crept out of the room, in search of my father. He would know what to do, he could help; but me, I had no idea. I could not find him and marched aimlessly trying to make sense of what had happened. Wandering back toward the box room, I saw my grandmother crying hysterically; my brother and father walking her toward the waiting room. I followed them to see if I could ask my dad what I should do. Everything had turned into a dream, or rather a nightmare. One event followed another, with nothing occurring to reclaim the situation. I sat down with my grandmother. Tears fell down her cheeks in angry bursts of emotion. Her shoulders shook and her face had lost its youthful glow. My brother sat on the chair next to her. Fear flashed in his eyes. His face pale, as if he had just seen a ghost. My father left as a nurse entered, “Do you need anything?” she spoke. Everyone sat, unmoved as if her voice had passed straight through them. Eventually my mouth rediscovered feeling and asked for some water. As quick as she entered, she’d left, leaving me to wonder around the waiting room in an attempt to calm down. It was a rather lifeless room. Chairs lined up around the walls like soldiers standing to attention. A woman sat working ferociously at a tapestry. The table lined with flowers and magazines lay in the middle. In the distance a television growled. Behind me, I heard a voice asking me to call my uncle. Then another telling me I could use the department’s telephone. I found my legs moving out of the room toward the desk. Then back again, toward the waiting room. We sat, for what seemed like forever, my grandmother sobbing and my brother in shock. How was I supposed to feel? I functioned much like a robot, I was the oldest, I was the responsible one and while everyone around me seemed to break, I had to be there to take care of things. I questioned what death was and why I was not as upset as everyone else. This was new to me. Death is something I had experienced as our pets had died, but this was something entirely different. The grandfather I knew and loved was suddenly no longer there. Questions raced through my mind as to what life was all about and why death had to be so final. Tears seem to flow in all faces I turned to. They were different tears filled with sadness and sorrow. My aunt entered the room. I never saw tears in her eyes but there was certain sadness. She held onto my grandmother’s hand and walked towards my grandfather’s body. As I entered the room, I expected darkness but the blinds opened and a beam of sunlight shone through the break in the clouds, illuminating the room. The bright sunlight sparkled over my grandfather’s face. It was as if through the darkness there was a ray of some hope, whatever that hope was. Everyone’s eyes were shattered with tears and a silent contemplation followed. I stood on my toes and kissed my grandfather’s forehead. He was still warm. I wanted to ask him to talk to me like he used to do. The doctors had certified him dead in a cold clinical way. To me though, he was always going to be the grandfather with the soft brown eyes that lit up the room, the grandfather whose smile was familiar to me and the man I simply knew as “Granddad”. As time has drifted forward, pictures of my grandfather held more meaning. Possessions of my grandfather ignited memories in my mind as if he was alive again. With his empty chair came memories of the past. On his favourite computer, he had left his words for me. Yellow roses adored by him were now more beautiful to me in strange way. That year, I learned the most important lesson of all - that my treasured memories of "granddad" could never be certified dead by anyone. Declaration – The patient found dead was a retired consultant surgeon.
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