A 90-year-old woman was left “screaming in pain” after her broken hip went without medical treatment for a week.
Marion Ross fell while in the care of Louisebrae care home in Perth, but staff failed to spot her injury or call a doctor.
The vascular dementia sufferer was eventually admitted to Perth Royal Infirmary where X-rays showed she had fractured her left hip.
She later developed an infection, which resulted in a second hip operation, and died just days later.
Her daughter, Morag, complained to the Care Inspectorate about her mother’s treatment by Louisebrae, and the watchdog has ruled that the home was negligent.
In a formal decision notice they said: “We found that the service had failed to seek prompt medical assessment for your mother after she experienced a fall on January 29 2016.
“Records show that a 72-hour regular monitoring chart was put in place which showed that eight hours after the initial fall, your mother directly told staff that she had pain in her hip and staff observed bruising to her left hip.
“From the day of the initial fall up to February 3 2016 when the GP was asked to visit and admitted your mother to Perth Royal Infirmary, records show that she has complained of pain, showed poor mobility, a reluctance to mobilise and a fear of falling again.”
While the care home has not been officially blamed for Marion’s death, Morag said she holds them ultimately responsible.
“I do blame the care home for her death. I don’t care what anyone else says,” she said. “She fell in their care — if they had looked after my mum better she wouldn’t have fallen.
“I got a call at 10.30pm to say she had fallen over a Zimmer in front of her chair. My mum was registered blind and never used a Zimmer and I had asked them not to put one in front of her.
“The staff told me they had got her up and I asked if they had called an ambulance, but they said there’s no need for that.
“Three days later and she was still screaming in pain but they were blaming it on her dementia.”
Seven days after Marion’s fall a GP was called and she was admitted to PRI and had hip surgery. She was readmitted after developing an infection in the wound site and underwent a second round of surgery.
Marion died that March, with her death certificate stating the cause of death as wound infection, haematoma and mechanical fall.
Morag added: “Nobody should be treated like that — they are meant to look after people and they didn’t.”
Mead Medica, which runs Louisebrae care home, declined to comment.