'They took away my rights and his'

The mother of a brain-damaged man who died after being moved to a nursing home against the wishes of his family speaks to Emma Browne

The family of a brain-damaged man who was moved to a nursing home against their wishes, where he died 11 days later, believe that the move “really
finished him”.

Vincent O'Brien, 41, was left permanently brain damaged after being assaulted by a group of young men in Tallaght, Co Dublin in August 2005. Since the assault, Vincent had been accommodated in St James's Hospital, where his mother Mary, who lives in Ballyfermot, visited him every day.

Against his family's wishes, the HSE moved Vincent to a nursing home in Co Kildare on 9 February 2007. At the time, he had a chest infection and his mother Mary says that his condition deteriorated after the move. On 19 February, he was brought to Naas General Hospital where he died. Mary says that told the HSE “that he wouldn't be able for the move”.

The HSE offered three nursing homes for Vincent in Kildare. Mary was happy with the first two, even though she would have to travel some distance to visit her son. Mary does not drive and cannot travel very far because of a heart condition. But the first nursing home refused Vincent because he was fed through his stomach, and the second nursing home was full. The family were then given the option of the third nursing home, but Mary felt that it was too far away for her to travel to.  

“I drove down to look at the home. And the home was perfect, and the staff was lovely, but the difficulty was the travel.”

In order for Mary to get to the nursing home, she would have to travel from her home in Ballyfermot to Busaras in Dublin city centre, then get a bus to Kildare, followed by a taxi from the bus stop to the home, costing €16 each way.

“I pleaded with the bed manager [of St James's] not to keep him there. They told me that I had no say in the matter, and I said ‘Well I am not signing any forms'. And she said ‘Well I don't need your consent. He is going there and that's that'. She made me feel I don't want to know anything about it.”

Before Vincent was moved, he was suffering from a chest infection. Mary believes that the combination of this, the move and his being unfamiliar with the voices and people around him, as well as not getting a daily visit from his mother, all contributed to his deteriorating condition once he was moved to the nursing home.

Mary went to visit him for the first time eight days after he had been moved. “He wouldn't even talk to me when I went to visit him. He was normally laughing and joking.
“I think when they shifted him down there he gave up, he just went into himself, and no way did he ever come back. He wasn't the same Vincent as in James's. From the time they moved him he started deteriorating.”

Pat, a friend of the family who often visited Vincent in hospital with Mary, says: “He fretted, he missed the same voices every day. Mary was the only one he would take something to eat from, and he missed all of that because she couldn't come and see him.

“Everybody around him was strange, he wasn't used to them... The change of environment, the different voices, all had an effect.”

Mary has six other children, one boy and five girls. Her eldest daughter died suddenly six years ago, and her husband passed away shortly afterwards.

Just a day before Vincent was moved to the nursing home, local TD Mary Upton asked the Minster for Health and Children about Vincent's case in the Dáil.

Michael Ahern, replying on behalf of Minster for Health Mary Harney, said: “The HSE advises a place was offered in a nursing home but was refused. Every effort will be made by the executive to accommodate the wishes of the families concerned.”

However, Mary and her family maintain that they did not refuse any place prior to the home he was placed in.

Mary says that before the assault Vincent was a “happy-go-lucky fellow, always joking... Even when he was in the hospital we had such a laugh. We were very very close.”
Vincent was brought to A&E in Naas General Hospital on 19 February 2007, where he had to wait for 12 hours before being admitted. Once he had been admitted and given antibiotics, Mary travelled home to “get an hour's rest. I was only in the door and I got the call, I didn't make it back in time. He was gone.

“It killed me that I couldn't get up to him everyday. I blame the shift for letting him go the way he did. They took away my rights and his when they moved him.”