Jakarta –
A mother of two in England died from drinking too much water. A woman named Michelle Whitehead (45) died two days after drinking too much water and went into a coma.
However, Michelle’s condition was discovered too late by the medical staff at the hospital. This made her husband, Michael Whitehead, blame the medical team for causing Michelle’s death.
“If they had acted earlier, Michelle would have been taken to the ICU and given an IV drip. That would have saved her life,” said Michael, quoted from NY PostSaturday (25/11/2023).
According to the medical journal BMJ Best Practice, Michelle has a condition called psychogenic polydipsia. The condition is characterized by excessive water intake and is often seen in patients with psychiatric and/or neurodevelopmental disorders.
Her husband claims that workers at the facility did not diagnose Michelle with psychogenic polydipsia at the time. In fact, Michelle had unsupervised access to consuming water in her room.
An investigation into her death found that staff allegedly gave her a sedative to sleep and she fell into a coma. That’s something the workers reportedly didn’t realize until four hours later.
Michelle was transferred to King’s Mill Hospital where she died. From the results of the examination, the cause of death was due to low sodium levels due to drinking excessive water. Excessive water intake caused swelling of the brain which eventually killed him.
The BBC reported that Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust admitted eight failures, including not complying with their policies after Michelle was sedated and staff were distracted by their mobile phones. The investigation concluded that mental health unit failure was ‘more than likely’ a cause of his death.
The coroner called on mental health units to do a better job of detecting psychogenic polydipsia, to prevent future deaths. Ifti Majid, CEO of Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust, apologized to Michelle’s family.
“We are considering the findings of the jury and the coroner. We recognize that there were some aspects of the service that were not of the quality they should be and we will address the concerns raised so that the experience of current and future patients can be improved,” he told the BBC.
Watch the video “Risks that threaten the health of Gaza residents due to the water crisis”
(star/kna)
2023-11-25 08:15:46
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