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From
The Daily Mail in the UK:
A scandal-hit hospital that allowed a severely disabled patient to suffocate after his head became trapped between the bars of his bed was ordered to pay £90,000 in fines and costs yesterday.
Kyle Flack (pictured), 20, was supposed to have special 'bumpers' fitted to his bed to protect him from the rails but staff used some that were too short.
He was also supposed to have one-on-one care around the clock but was often left on his own.
Two days after he was admitted to Basildon Hospital in Essex a ward hostess serving breakfast noticed his head had become trapped.
Staff tried desperately to resuscitate Mr Flack, a quadriplegic who had cerebral palsy, was blind, deaf and mute and was the size of a 12-year-old, but were unable to save him.
It later emerged the hospital had adult-size bumpers but none for children which cost 'a little more'.
The hospital last month admitted failing to protect patients at risk of injury or death under health and safety legislation and was yesterday fined £50,000 and ordered to pay £40,000 costs.
Mr Flack's adoptive mother Gillian, 55, who looked after him from the age of two, afterwards called for chief executive Alan Whittle to quit.
She said: 'My son couldn't call for help, he had a horrendous death, and nobody went to his room. I have to live with the fact I put him in that hospital.'
Mr Flack, from Stanford-le-Hope, was admitted to the hospital on October 10, 2006, with a stomach problem and his mother made it 'quite plain' he would need bumpers.
But he was issued with ill-fitting equipment, despite having problems at the same hospital previously.
He was later moved from a four-bed room with constant care to a private room where he was only occasionally monitored by a night nurse with 12 other patients.
Basildon Crown Court heard 34 patients in England and Wales died between 1996 and 2006 as a result of getting trapped in bed rails.
Prosecutor Pascal Bates said warning information and posters had been issued by the government but Basildon Hospital had no procedures in place to deal with the risk.
In Mr Flack's case, he added, there had been a 'vacuum of information'. It had 'failed in procedures in relation to supervision, in passing on information, in training of staff and assessment of risk'.
Iain Daniels, defending, said risk assessments were now carried out and 872 child-sized rails had been purchased.
The hospital was criticised in a damning Care Quality Commission report last October when inspectors found blood-spattered curtains, soiled mattresses, and disposable equipment being used more than once.
There were also concerns about death rates.
From The Daily Mail in the UK:
