London: Britain's National Health Service (NHS) has apologised to the family of a woman who died hours after workmen turned her hospital room into a building site.
According to her son, an hour before June Barnett, 76, lost her battle with pneumonia at the hospital, three builders pushed her bed out of the way to drill holes in the wall. They slung her medical drip over the back of a chair, Daily Express reported.
While paying an unexpected visit to his mother on the morning of her death, Colin Barnett said he was appalled to notice the men installing an entertainment station above her head.
"I was absolutely outraged. It looked like a building site in there. You couldn't access the medical equipment because they were in the way," said Barnett.
"Apologies don't improve things. I don't understand how professionals could allow an individual to be treated like that.
Barnett said as he walked in, he noticed stepladders and power tools lying around. They had pushed her bed out of the way and put her drip and oxygen tubes over the back of a chair.
"I saw a workman sitting on the bedhead drilling a hole in the wall. She was unconscious at the time. Shortly after that they moved her into another room and told me she was going to die. She died an hour after she was moved."
The woman had been admitted to hospital April 21 with stomach and chest infections.
Helen Blanchard, the hospital's chief nursing officer, said: "We do not discuss individual patients. We have fully responded to Mr. Barnett's concerns and apologised for any distress caused."
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