A homeless man desperate to be readmitted to hospital died after overdosing on his discharge medication, an inquest was told.
Only a few hours earlier, 35-year-old Mark Hurley had refused to leave Airedale Hospital and was escorted off the premises.
When he was found dead on October 1 last year in the subway under Skipton Road near the hospital, much of his 14-day supply of painkillers and anti-sickness tablets appeared to have been taken, the hearing in Bradford was told on Tuesday.
Mr Hurley, who had given the hospital a false name and address, had been admitted with stomach pains. When doctors deemed him fit for discharge, he refused to go.
Staff nurse Tracey Jessop said she told him at the end of her shift “it wasn’t a hotel” after he hung about in the dayroom. The next morning she discovered he was still present.
Staff arranged for Mr Hurley to go to the Keighley Salvation Army.
Nurses gave him his bus fare, milk, food and some shoes to replace his old ones, but he “was still messing about”, added Nurse Jessop, who called security guards to escort him out.
Mental health liaison nurse Jim Wilson said he believed Mr Hurley’s death had not been a suicide attempt but was an “error of judgement”.
“He went to a public place where people would pass. My interpretation was he did not want to leave hospital and wanted to be taken back, but no-one found him – no-one reported him until it was too late,” he added.
Recording a verdict of misadventure, assistant Bradford coroner Dr Dominic Bell said he was satisfied with the hospital’s care of Mr Hurley, and that his decision to give false personal information meant his death was “not reasonably foreseeable or preventable”.
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