“The way my wife died in the hospital after being hospitalized with an infection will haunt me forever.”

When Robert Book took his wife Annelis to the hospital with a leg infection last June, he expected her to be home in a day or two with a course of antibiotics. A similar infection has cleared up after treatment with drugs in the past.

However, within a week, Ms. Boak, 63, fell into a coma from which she never recovered. She died 10 days after being transferred from Furness General Hospital to the Royal Salford Hospital in Greater Manchester.

All the doctors could do was “calm her down,” Mr Book said. I. “The worst thing was that I never got to take her hand to say goodbye.” The couple have been married for 45 years.

Mr Boak, 68, from Grange over Sands, Cumbria, believes Furness’s series of general staff errors led to his wife contracting sepsis and contributing to her death. The Midlands and Lancashire NHS Commissioning Support Unit (CSU) launched an investigation into what happened last August but is reportedly frustrated by the lack of commitment from medics and officials at Furness General, which is managed by the Morecambe University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust Bay (UHMBT). ) is being operated on).

The two initial terms passed without any action on Mr. Boak’s complaint. They were moved to November and then to this week, more than six months after Ms. Boak’s death. Another delay means that his complaint will not be answered until February 20.

“This seems quite excessive for the seven-day period of events that I asked for answers,” Boak said.

Ms. Boak presented to the Furness emergency room on June 18 with a small cellulitis lesion on her right leg, a common bacterial skin infection that causes redness, swelling, and pain in the infected skin area. However, if left untreated, it can spread and cause serious health problems. Ms. Boak, who was immunocompromised after a kidney transplant, was transferred to the emergency department and three days later to the general care department.

Doctors gave her flucloxacillin, but Mr Boak, who has been caring for his wife since 2014, told them the antibiotic wouldn’t work on its own — it didn’t work because of a previous infection — and asked for another one. He claims that doctors ignored him. Mr. Boak also said staff failed to understand his wife’s health issues, including epilepsy, and repeatedly failed to heed his concerns.

Mr Boak feared his wife had developed sepsis as her infection began to spread. “I was told to calm down that I was overreacting and wait for the flucloxacillin to take effect,” he said. “As the infection spread, Annelis’s epilepsy became unmanageable. Whenever I asked to speak to Annelise’s doctor, I was told that she was too busy.”

Ms. Book called her husband at 5:30 am on June 24 and said she woke up covered in blood. The nurses washed her, but she did not know what had happened. Mr Boak claims staff did not help his wife with food and drink and she developed neurological problems, including slurred speech. The ward nurse told Mr. Boak that his wife had probably had a stroke.

Ms. Boak was also not helped to go to the toilet, she was catheterized and one liter of urine was drained from her bladder, according to the CSU’s first letter to Mr. Boak. According to Mr Book, a request to stay longer with his wife due to her deteriorating health was denied and she was transferred to the Furness General Intensive Care Unit.

“When I visited her, she was asleep and did not regain consciousness,” Boak said. “Four days later, she was transferred to the Royal Salford Hospital, where she had previously been treated very well for her neurological problems, but the doctors said she had suffered several strokes and all they could do was make her comfortable. Annelis died 10 days later, on July 10.”

Mr. Boak demanded answers from Furness General, including why his wife had not been transferred to Salford Royal sooner, which could have saved her life. Mr Book also believes Furness General’s small workforce contributed to the poor care he received from his wife.

“Annelis was already dying when she was taken to the Furness intensive care unit. But the staff didn’t tell me anything and put her in an induced coma before she was transferred to the Salford Royal. ICU and her neurologist in Salford told me that all they could really do was try to figure out what happened at Furness General. Actually something like an autopsy. The results shocked me, explained everything about my wife’s condition and justified my fears, which were always ignored.

“I feel like if the same thing happened at home, I could be accused of neglect or abuse because I didn’t see my wife being treated humanely and properly.”

Mr. Book believes that due to stress, he developed heart problems. A bout of atrial fibrillation, which causes a very irregular heartbeat, damaged his mitral valve so badly that he underwent heart surgery this month in Blackpool when he turned 68. Now that he’s back home, he’s desperate to figure out what happened.

“It has been several years since there has been a major effort in NHS hospitals to detect and treat sepsis. A lot of money, time, training and effort was invested in the “battle” against this invisible and secret killer of many people. So what happened?

“Hospitals are now blaming comorbidities and basically anything to cover up that the real cause was sepsis and they either didn’t know or consciously came to the conclusion that I understand they did to Annelise.

“Letting non-invasive infections turn into sepsis and then killing people is a terrible way to die, often in great pain and delirious, unable to do anything but know what is happening to them. I’m afraid it will haunt me forever.”

Bridget Lees, Chief Nurse at UHMBT, said: “This has clearly been a very unpleasant experience for Mr. Boak and his late wife, and we are deeply sorry. We will contact Mr. Book next week for further discussion.”