Family: Our unanswered questions over Valerie Gough's death at Highgate Mental Health Centre

Published: 18th March, 2011
by TOM FOOT

A FAMILY is demanding answers after a woman diagnosed with manic depression was found dead on the floor of her psychiatric ward.

Valerie Gough, 62, died from bronchial pneumonia at Jasper ward in Highgate Mental Health Centre secure unit on February 25.

Her family, who live in Angel, have been told by social workers she had been ill with a chest infection and was taking antibiotics.

Valerie had been taken to Whittington Hospital in Archway in the weeks before her death, but was discharged back to the mental health centre. 

The Tribune understands she was due to return to the hospital the day before she died but did not make the appointment.

Her mother-in-law, Joyce Gough, who lives in Falcon Court, City Garden Row, said: “We have many questions. Why was she in a mental hospital if she had physical needs? How long was she lying there on the floor? 

“Why after one month do we know nothing about how she died. It’s been three weeks since she died but they are saying it could be two weeks until the body is released for the funeral – why is it taking so long?”

Valerie’s burial and funeral costs are being met by Camden Council social services because she died just over the borough border. 

A spokeswoman for the council said it had only received referral for the burial on March 11, adding that it was council policy to first check her property, assets and bank account to see if any costs can be recovered.

Bronchial pneumonia occurs when a bacterial infection spreads in small tubes – the bronchi and bronchioles – which carry air in and out of the lungs. 

A post mortem on March 1 found death was due to natural causes and a full inquest has been ruled out by the St Pancras coroner.

But while the death may not be thought to warrant official investigation, the tragedy has raised questions about the early discharge of vulnerable patients from hospital

District hospitals are no longer properly funded to provide beds for rehabilitation, only to treat patients, and the frail and vulnerable are increasingly discharged too soon – often left to the mercy of social services and underfunded home care teams. 

A NHS source added: “Mentally ill people have the same right to hospital care as anyone else, but in practice hospitals are reluctant to take in patients who are acutely mentally ill because they see them as a nuisance.”

At Highgate Mental Health Centre every ward has a senior house officer – normally a junior doctor on placement. Doctors rarely visit psychiatric wards.

Mrs Gough, a former dance teacher and opera singer, is the mother of Valerie’s husband, Stephen Gough. She said that her son, who also suffers from mental health problems, was “heartbroken”.

The couple, who found love despite their acute mental health problems, were forced to live in separate accommodation in Angel. Valerie’s mother died in 1999, and her father when she was very young. 

Mrs Gough said: “She never really had much and she has had a tough life. 

“That’s why I’m trying to do the right thing by her now.”

A spokesman for Camden and Islington Foundation Trust, which runs the centre, said that further investigations were unlikely in the absence of a coroner’s inquest.

A spokeswoman for Whittington Hospital said Valerie was last brought to the hospital on January 19.