A grieving son was given just an hour to say goodbye to his father because the medics had already called the undertaker after he died during an operation at a private hospital.
Phil, the father of Orson Morris, passed away in December 2021 as a result of errors made at St Anthony’s Hospital in Sutton following a £12,000 gastric sleeve procedure.
Phil’s wife, Dana, was called by staff members at 2 am to be given the news and told she had one hour to see the 48-year-old before his body was taken away.
Dana woke Orson, then 12 years old, before they rushed to the hospital owned by private health provider Spire.
Orson, now 14, told the Mirror he will ‘never forgive’ the hospital for the way they treated his father and ‘ruined his final goodbye with him’.
The youngster claims to have only had five minutes alone with his dad, as ‘heartless’ staff kept walking in while he attempted to sing a song he ‘knew his dad would have loved’.
He said, ‘I’ll never get that back, and that hurts so much. Not only did we only get minutes with him instead of hours, but they demanded we go at 2 am and see the body or we’d be too late.
‘When we got there, staff kept coming in saying, ‘They’re coming’, referring to the funeral directors they had called without consulting us.’
The family was in further distress when they saw a stretcher next to the door with staff from the funeral director while they were ushered out of the room.
Last week, a coroner at the inquest into actor and lecturer Phil’s death found he would have survived had vital steps been taken by hospital staff.
The inquest heard Phil was not properly monitored after the surgery, as staff failed to take blood tests as requested by his surgeon.
He was then allowed to leave intensive care without the oxygen he needed and died on December 10 from hypoxia—a lack of oxygen.
After receiving a bill for Phil’s medical care only a few days after his passing, his family is now thinking of taking Spire to court.
A spokesman for Spire said: ‘We apologise for the distress and pain Mr Morris’ death has caused. Prior to the inquest, we carried out a thorough review of Mr Morris’ treatment and have taken action to address the learnings we identified.
‘We accept the coroner’s findings and will reflect on what further we can learn from this sad case.’
Just because one goes private, it turns out many private hospitals have no facilities for an emergency, and for a child, or anyone, only to get minutes to say goodbye to their parent is sad. There was such a lack of compassion shown by staff.
It seems like the hospital made a medical blunder, and they were trying to remove the evidence.
This man’s death was unexpected, and there would have needed an autopsy for the inquest, which is critical in cases like this. Spire never had the appropriate facilities or staff trained in after-death care.
Spire mucked up by not explaining their actions to the deceased man’s loved ones.
The man’s operation wasn’t an emergency; rather, it turned into one due to the staff’s disregard for the surgeon’s fundamental instructions, and they need to be held legally liable for that alone.
They say that going private is a better quality of care because it is private, but clearly, this isn’t the case.
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