Squalid death of paralysis mother in row over care

An inquest in Sheffield heard Angela Wright was only 45 years old when she died as a result of a huge bladder stone which had built up due to a neglected catheter. She was found at her filthy bungalow covered in faeces, urine and dirty blankets.

The mother-of-three had been confined to the same broken wheelchair for five years, never changed her clothes, went to the toilet where she sat and ordered food by operating her computer with her mouth.

Mrs Wright had previously been engulfed a row with Sheffield Council over her care package and had received her last visit three years before she died in October 2008.

The inquest heard that she suffered with generalised dystonia, a neurological movement disorder which meant she was paralysed from the neck down and would go into spasm if anybody tried to approach her from her left side.

Mrs Wright, originally from Glasgow, met her future husband when she moved to Aldershot, Hampshire, and joined the Territorial Army. But by the time she was 22 she had started falling into deep sleeps and by the mid-1990s she had no movement in her body at all.

When her marriage ended she moved north to Sheffield to be near her sister, Carolyn Petch. She was eventually diagnosed with her condition in 2000, when she weighed just four-and-a-half stone.

Despite her illness, Mrs Wright left the house to go shopping or to the cinema when her children Stephen, now 20, Mark, 22, and daughter, Maritte, 23, visited.

Although she had care at the flat where she was living, in 2003 she had to be hospitalised with a blocked catheter and remained there for 10 months while social services negotiated a new care plan.

Her youngest son was living with her, and in 2004 the council started proceedings against her, saying he was caring for her.

Giving evidence, Sheffield Council's disability services manager Robert Broadhead said Mrs Wright "knew what she wanted and was very particular in how she should be cared for".

He said: "If carers weren't caring for her the way she liked and didn't like the way she was handled she didn't want them to come back again.

"It got to the point the care agencies' duty of care to their carers, as well as Angela, meant they would say they were no longer able to provide care."

The hearing heard Mrs Wright started legal proceedings as she wanted carers trained by nurses she selected and only one carer to be present at a time.

Sheffield Council refused the release of the nurse for training and wanted her to have two carers present each time, in case there was an incident and needed help.

But when they eventually looked into training carers, Mrs Wright refused to co-operate.

She was left with no care but that of her two sons, who now lived with her. They would provide her with food and drink, although she refused to let them get involved in her personal hygiene.

She did not move from her wheelchair, which was donated from an army charity in 2001, for five years from 2003.

Her son rang an ambulance in September 2008, the week before she died, when her head dropped backwards.

The paramedic who arrived at the scene, Alexander Munroe, told the court of the shock of what he was confronted with.

He said: "The crew were shocked at the sight of Angela and the state in which she was living.

"I walked in and the house was in quite a bad state, there was a box of rubbish in the hall, it was just a mess. I walked into the lounge and there were hazards everywhere.Angela was laid across a very old worn wheelchair in the corner of a room. It was horrible.

"If you looked under the wheelchair there was excrement. It was as if she was moulded to the wheelchair with the blankets covered in excrement and urine that had been there for a long time.

"Angela was adamant she would not go to hospital."

Mrs Wright died a few days later after that visit, on October 1, 2008.

On the day she died, her GP and others were visiting her home in the hope of arranging another care plan.

The inquest continues.