{"id":357483,"date":"2025-12-19T03:52:13","date_gmt":"2025-12-19T03:52:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/357483\/"},"modified":"2025-12-19T03:52:13","modified_gmt":"2025-12-19T03:52:13","slug":"family-thought-granny-was-dead-after-medication-mix-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/357483\/","title":{"rendered":"Family thought granny was dead after medication mix-up"},"content":{"rendered":"

Toni Connor and Luke SprouleBBC News NI <\/p>\n

\"FamilyFamily handout<\/p>\n

Ellen Whitla pictured beside her granddaughter Kaci Gibson <\/p>\n

The family of a County Down pensioner who was found unresponsive after being given the wrong medication by domiciliary carers have said they thought she had died.<\/p>\n

It was the second time in recent months that Ellen Whitla had mistakenly been given medication prescribed to her daughter, including antipsychotic medicine and antidepressants.<\/p>\n

She had to be admitted to hospital and was given oxygen in an incident her grandson Gareth Gibson said was frightening.<\/p>\n

The South Eastern Health and Social Care Trust has apologised to the 87-year-old and her family following the incident and has launched an investigation.<\/p>\n

Mrs Whitla, who takes medication for Parkinson’s disease, lives with her daughter in Newtownards.<\/p>\n

Domiciliary carers provided by the health trust visit each day to look after Mrs Whitla.<\/p>\n

Mr Gibson said that on two occasions – once in August and again earlier in December – the carers went to find her medication in the house and, instead of handing Mrs Whitla her own medication, they handed her her daughter’s, which she then took.<\/p>\n

The second incident led to her being admitted to hospital.<\/p>\n

Between the two incidents between the two incidents Mrs Whitla’s daughter’s medication dosage had increased.<\/p>\n

Both women’s medication was in blister packs and was labelled with their names.<\/p>\n

‘I think granny’s dead’<\/p>\n

Mr Gibson said Mrs Whitla’s granddaughter visited her home shortly after she was given the medication on the second occasion and found her unresponsive.<\/p>\n

“I was at work and I got the phone call from my sister saying ‘I think granny’s dead’,” he said.<\/p>\n

“I was horrified, my heart sank.<\/p>\n

“We feared what would happen to her, we didn’t know if she was going to survive.<\/p>\n

“My younger sister was right to think that my grandmother might have been dead, because when I arrived there were not many signs of life, there was not much of a level of response and it wasn’t obvious she was breathing.”<\/p>\n

‘Confusion off the Richter scale’<\/p>\n

The family called an ambulance, which took Mrs Whitla to the Ulster Hospital in Dundonald.<\/p>\n

She needed to be given oxygen, had low blood pressure and her heart rate was dropping.<\/p>\n

Mr Gibson said doctors initially thought something else may have happened to her given her level of consciousness. <\/p>\n

But he said they later told him the cause was an antidepressant from his mother’s medication.<\/p>\n

She began to regain responsiveness in the evening and was finally able to get out of bed again by 22:00, 13 hours after she took the medication.<\/p>\n

After this she suffered from severe confusion, which continued in the following days.<\/p>\n

“Granny wasn’t with us, she was away with it,” Mr Gibson said.<\/p>\n

“Her confusion level was just off the Richter scale.”<\/p>\n

She is now recovering at home, but Mr Gibson said she was still not back to normal.<\/p>\n

“She still remains confused,” he said.<\/p>\n

“Like any 87 year old, my granny could be a bit forgetful, but prior to hospital admission that’s as far as it went.<\/p>\n

“Now it’s just there’s that level of confusion.”<\/p>\n

\"FamilyFamily handout<\/p>\n

Gareth said he hoped his granny would be well enough to come to his house for Christmas Day <\/p>\n

Mr Gibson said he felt the initial response from the health trust – a phone call from a member of staff – was unprofessional. <\/p>\n

“He said he was just ringing to discuss the ‘wee incident’ with my grandmother,” Mr Gibson said.<\/p>\n

“In the midst of the fear of my grandmother’s health and well-being this was diabolical, this was shambolic, that the first person to contact me was describing this as a ‘wee incident’.”<\/p>\n

“My grandmother could have been dead but this was the first response from the trust.”<\/p>\n

The trust subsequently contacted Mr Gibson to apologise and told him an investigation was underway.<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for the trust told BBC News NI it would advise Mrs Whitla and her family about the outcome of the investigation “and any lessons learned”.<\/p>\n

“Patient safety is the South Eastern Trust’s priority and it takes issues like this very seriously,” the spokesperson added.<\/p>\n

“The trust continues to care for and support Mrs Whitla in her home.”<\/p>\n

‘This was avoidable’<\/p>\n

Mr Gibson said it had been a very worrying time for the family.<\/p>\n

“My overriding emotion is one of sadness,” he said.<\/p>\n

“This shouldn’t have happened, this was avoidable and there’s always anger there.”<\/p>\n

Mr Gibson said the family intended to make an official complaint to the trust.<\/p>\n

He added that he hoped his granny would recover enough to be able to come to his house on Christmas Day.<\/p>\n

“She always has been since we lost my grandfather, she’s been in my home every single year,” he said.<\/p>\n

“I don’t know whether I’ll get her out of her house this year just because of her level of mobility and confusion.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Toni Connor and Luke SprouleBBC News NI Family handout Ellen Whitla pictured beside her granddaughter Kaci Gibson The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":357484,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[64,63,137,500],"class_list":{"0":"post-357483","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-healthcare","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-health","11":"tag-healthcare"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357483","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=357483"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357483\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/357484"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=357483"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=357483"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=357483"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}