‘All we want is to bring Bernadette Bazzoni home to Redbrick estate’
Family’s appeal after stairs fall leaves grandmother with severe brain damage
Published: 22 October, 2010
by PETER GRUNER
THE distraught family of a woman who suffered major brain damage after falling head-first down stairs at her home in Finsbury are seeking help to have her rehoused.
Bernadette Bazzoni, 51, who worked in the City, was found unconscious at the bottom of 12 stairs inside her first-floor flat at Steadman Court on the Redbrick estate in January.
She was on her way to bed when she either passed out or slipped and fell heavily on her head. Today, she is still in a “semi-vegetative” state and cannot talk or communicate.
Mrs Bazzoni, a grandmother with three grown-up children, was in an induced coma in hospital for two-and-a-half weeks at the Royal Neurological Hospital in Putney.
She now manages to sit up in bed at a nursing home in Wharf Road, near her home, but cannot even use eye movement to communicate. Members of the family talk to her and play her favourite pop music, including Oasis and Take That. Doctors hope she will improve.
Dozens of family and friends turned up for a campaign meeting at the estate’s community centre on Tuesday night.
They called on Islington Council to arrange for Mrs Bazzoni to be moved to a more accessible, ground-floor flat on the estate as soon as possible. They were joined by leader of the Lib Dem opposition Councillor Terry Stacy.
Mrs Bazzoni’s husband Tony, a delivery driver, said family and friends were heartbroken. “She’s an outgoing and active woman who held down a good job,” he said. “On the day of the fall we’d been out with the grandchildren. It was getting late and Bernadette was very tired and wanted to go to bed. The next thing there was a mighty crash and she had fallen down the stairs that lead to our bedroom.”
The Bazzonis have found a vacant, ground-floor flat on the estate with wheelchair access which would be perfect for Mrs Bazzoni.
“Bernadette must remain in the nursing home until we have found suitable alternative accommodation,” Mr Bazzoni said. “She can’t return to our current flat because it is on the first floor.
“The vacant dwelling would be ideal. It has three bedrooms, one for Bernadette and her life-saving equipment, one for me and one for either a carer or a member of the family who will stay and help.”
Daughter Michelle described the last nine months as distressing for the family. “All we want is to bring mum home to the estate where she has lived for almost 30 years,” she said. “This is where she is known and loved and what she is familiar with.
“With injuries to the brain it’s important to have familiar surroundings to help with recovery. Things that will help the brain remember include faces, places and voices.”
The family have the support of Labour councillor Claudia Webbe, who believes there is a strong case for Mrs Bazzoni to be rehoused in the empty ground-floor property.
Cllr Webbe said: “The family came to me because they were getting nowhere with the council. It seemed that departments were not talking to each other.
“The family will have to bid for the flat when it eventually becomes available but I believe they have the required number of points.
“The flat is currently boarded up and subject to a closure order. We have to go through the courts to evict the current tenants. This is holding everything up.”