Death of Kerry Murphy from Royal Darwin Hospital fall due to ‘lack of care’

OVERCROWDED wards and poor procedures likely contributed to the death of a much loved father-of-three who fell and hit his head in the Royal Darwin Hospital Emergency Department, a coronial inquest has heard

A coronial inquest has heard overcrowded wards likely contributed to the death of a father-of-three who fell and hit his head in the Royal Darwin Hospital Emergency Department. PICTURE: Ivan Rachman

OVERCROWDED wards and poor procedures likely contributed to the death of a much loved father-of-three who fell and hit his head in the Royal Darwin Hospital Emergency Department, a coronial inquest has heard.

Kerry Murphy, 73, fell on his way to the Emergency Department bathroom in July 2014, where he was being treated because every other bed in the hospital was full.

Mr Murphy, a retired dairy farmer, lumberjack and soldier was admitted after a dizzy spell at home and was being treated for pneumonia.

Counsel assisting the coroner Kelvin Currie said this was the fourth inquest into a death caused by a fall at the hospital since 1999.

“Mr Murphy went to hospital with an issue that was not life threatening, but he died as a result of lack of care,” he said.

The inquest heard Mr Murphy was “double bunked” in an “overcrowded” Emergency Department, where nurses were dealing with more patients than usual.

His family were not told of him being transferred to Darwin Private Hospital after the fall, and only found him “almost as a matter of accident”.

The inquest heard there was no whole-of-hospital fall risk policy at the time, an issue which was remedied in the months following Mr Murphy’s death.

Mr Murphy’s nurse, Elise Brady, said she was “surprised” to see Mr Murphy out of bed.

“If I had known he needed to go to the bathroom ... I probably would have ... helped him to get to the bathroom,” she said.

“All patients have call buttons ... most people know how to use them. We also instruct patients on how to use them.”

Ms Brady said Mr Murphy told her after the fall he had been allowed out of bed because he had been taken off a cardiac monitor.

She said the fall happened on a busy day and Emergency Department nurses weren’t required to do as much as nurses on other wards when assessing whether a patient was at risk of a fall. Mr Murphy’s doctor, Rory Hannah, said there was no clinical handover to Darwin Private Hospital, which Coroner Greg Cavanagh said was “frankly unacceptable”.

Mr Cavanagh also criticised the Health Department for the way it handed over some documents on a “without prejudice” basis “in what might be called an adversarial civil litigation approach”.

The inquest continues today.