Coroner hears from hospital staff on 2nd day of Hillary Hooper inquest – New Brunswick | 24CA News
WARNING: This story incorporates content material that could be disturbing to some readers. Discretion is suggested.
On day two of a coroner’s inquest into the demise of Hillary Cooper in Saint John, N.B., coroner Emily Caissy heard from among the Horizon Health Network workers available the evening she died.
That evening, she got here to the nursing station asking if she might say goodbye to one of many nurses who was generally on shift throughout that point. Staff imagine it wasn’t uncommon for longer-term sufferers to do that.
Hours later, the workers checked on Hooper throughout their 11 p.m. rounds. Staff couldn’t open the door to Hooper’s room, noticing by means of a small pane of glass within the door that Hooper wasn’t in her mattress.
Staff shortly checked on the remaining sufferers earlier than returning to Hooper’s room moments later. When they opened the door, the workers managed to maneuver the mattress out of the best way earlier than realizing that Hooper wasn’t within the second mattress within the bed room, however slightly within the toilet. Then, the registered nurses discovered a sheet from the mattress jammed on the high of the door body.
Hooper used the sheet within the door body to hold herself in an try and take her personal life.
Staff didn’t suppose a lot of an object blocking the door, which was reportedly widespread observe to stop mild from shining into the room and to cease the door from opening. Hospital workers later confirmed within the surgical intensive care unit {that a} seizure occurred throughout that point, and Hooper suffered a mind damage.
Hooper’s mom Patty Borthwick spent two years searching for solutions in her daughter’s demise, in a hospital the place she thought her daughter can be secure. In December of 2022, an inquest was authorized by the province’s chief coroner.
Renee Fournier, a director at Horizon Health, mentioned on the stand Tuesday that Horizon has made two suggestions since then.
First, lower off the tops of doorways to stop related situations.
Second, to maneuver sufferers with borderline persona dysfunction to different components of the hospital. Hooper was recognized with it in November 2020.
Fournier mentioned there was a dialogue round objects obstructing doorways, however it was not launched as a advice.
The inquest continues by means of to Thursday.
Global News will proceed to comply with this story.
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