The daughter of a 92-year-old man who died at Larnaca General Hospital has accused staff of feeding her father despite him being unable to swallow, triggering an aspiration into his lungs that she said set off a rapid decline over eight days.
Speaking to state television, the woman said her father was admitted with a mild stroke and spent five hours in Accident and Emergency before being transferred to the Gregorios Clinic because no beds were available in the pathology ward. No clear medical instructions were passed along during the transfer, she said, and staff gave him food and tea. Nursing staff later appeared to admit they had not been told the patient should not have been fed, she added.
“They told us to sign consent for his hands to be restrained because he was agitated,” she said. The family had to use personal connections to request his transfer to a pathology ward or the intensive care unit.
A nasogastric tube that should have been fitted promptly was delayed by repeated failed attempts from staff and then postponed after the patient was mistakenly given anticoagulant medication the previous evening, she said. When the procedure was finally carried out, it took just two minutes with no difficulty. “It was left to me to try to insert the nasogastric tube, along with the cleaners,” she said.
After the tube was fitted, her father’s condition deteriorated sharply and he became unresponsive. “The monitor wasn’t even facing his direction,” she said.
On the last day of his life, the woman said she left the hospital for roughly an hour and returned to find him dead. “I called out to them and I could hear them saying, ‘Really?’” she said.
She made a public appeal to the president, the health minister and the management of the Health Insurance Organisation (HIO) to intervene immediately. “In the eight days we were there, five people died, including young people. People are shouting and filing complaints. They need to see what is happening,” she said.
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