Relatives tell jury of change in elderly patients after drug errors

Leeds Crown Court has heard GP Rajendra Kokkarne prescribed doses of morphine sulphate for Beryl Barber, 78 and Eric Watson, 86, after speaking on the telephone to a nurse at the Charlton Centre for Alzheimer’s and Dementia Care in Batley about their condition. Mrs Barber had painful ulcers and Mr Watson a urinary infection.

But the prosecution claims he was “pre-occupied” before and after dispensing the prescriptions by looking at sport and other items on the same computer, and negligently prescribed inappropriately strong doses.

Kokkarne, 37, of Fulmar Way, Worksop denies the manslaughter by gross negligence of Mrs Barber on February 3, 2008 and of Mr Watson on February 4, 2008.

Mrs Barber’s daughter, Claire Gill saw her on the morning of February 3, soon after she had received her second dose of the drug, the first being the previous evening.

In a statement she said: “There was a dramatic difference in her facial appearance.

“Her face was drawn, her eyes were closed and her breathing was shallow.”

Later that night she heard her mother had died. “Receiving this call was a shock to me as I did not expect my mum to die.”

Mr Watson’s stepdaughter Sandra Hooley visited him on February 3. He had received one dose of the medication the previous evening and she said in a statement read to the jury yesterday she was shocked by his appearance and wept

“I could see what looked like a little shrunken head with his mouth wide open and his eyes shut.”

A nurse told her he had been given morphine the night before and she heard the next morning he had died.

Sylvia Hadden, a registered nurse who worked night duty at the care home, said she knew both patients and their health was in decline in both cases in the days before.

She was not on duty the night they were administered the morphine sulphate but told the court that when she saw their condition when she next returned to the unit she feared both were near death and that proved to be the case.

Under cross-examination by Timothy Langdale QC, defending Kokkarne, she agreed that as an experienced nurse had she seen the morphine concentration prescribed to them she would have queried it.

The trial continues.