Betrayed by the NHS: Heartbreaking Story of a Mother's Murder and a Family's Fight for Justice

This is the tragic story of 57-year old Angela who was involuntarily euthanised at the Queen Elizabeth Queen Mother Hospital in Margate, Kent.

Her daughter Stevie re-lives the horrific events that led up to her mother's untimely death. Stevie is disabled and a wheelchair user and her mother was her full time carer. To make matters worse, the family were homeless at the time, living in a hotel approximately 80 miles away from their nearest family and friends. They had no support network whatsoever! Our government and healthcare system have totally failed this family and have a lot to answer for!

This is their harrowing story, as written in Stevie's own words:

"Steve, I'm worried if I go into hospital, I'm not going to come out". These are the words my crying mum said to me, after yet another badgering from me, to let me call an ambulance for her. Surely, she was being overdramatic? If she doesn't go to hospital, she's going to die!

Ironically, Mum used to be a nurse. She knew things. "Never let them take my, or your organs" and "never let them turn off life support" she always used to warn us.

The ulcers are getting worse. The NHS won't provide any effective pain relief. They won't clean her ulcers properly. Her heart and adrenal glands can't take that much pain. Every time the doctor gives her antibiotics, the ulcers improve. As soon as the doctor takes her off antibiotics, the ulcers rapidly deteriorate again. Why won't they keep her on them? Are they trying to kill her? They keep telling her if she doesn't eat, the ulcers won't heal and she's going to die. Like it's our choice to be homeless, disabled, and to not be able to afford food. Why don't they prescribe nutrition shakes? Why don't they safeguard us against both Redbridge and Thanet social services, who refuse to do a care assessment and meet any of our eligible needs, including the need to maintain nutrition? Why don't they save us money so we might be able to afford more food, by not leaving it to us to buy our mother's bandages? The Thanet District nurses, would more often than not, turn up without bandages, claiming "we're not able to provide bandages, due to budget cuts".

"How were you going to dress the ulcers then? " One of us would ask. Then they would "go check the car" and come back with one. " They remind me of men, who turn up for sex without a condom, and when you say " well it's not happening then ", they miraculously find one in their pocket" I once said. My mum laughed, and agreed with the comparison.

What is the point in having these horrible hostile district nurses arrive every day and intrude on us, when they're not even helping, I thought. They're making things worse. She was always so brave. She rarely cries. To see her cry from the physical agony of these ulcers was unbearable.

If she can only survive this, we'll sue Redbridge Council. We'll eventually have a home, and our lives will start again. Mum will get to visit all the places she wants to go, like the Bronte Parsonage in Hawarth. She'll write her academic articles on Mary Anning, and Alice James. We'll go private and get her double hip operation, and we'll adopt a dog. We'll resume her helping me learn how to sing.

We're so close to safety. We will win. She's taken our council to court twice as a self-represented litigant and won. She annihilated them. Two judges quashed the councils "intentional homelessness" decision against us, and another judge has said they appear to be in a "vendetta" against us. We have so much evidence against the council. How much longer can we realistically last though? We have been homeless for two years. They abandoned us, two disabled women (my mum, disabled herself yet fulltime carer to me, Stevie), and my brother, Sean (caring for both of us before and after work), to die on the streets. They did this, knowing I had severe heart failure, and brain damage which affects my ability to regulate my temperature, and knowing I faced freezing to death on the street. They did this to my mum, who had just come out of hospital, surviving sepsis. We have been malnourished, in and out of hospital, refused social care and support, had the shelter over our heads constantly threatened, and have been moved from pillar to post throughout this time. Never any security, constantly destabilised and disorientated. Not living, but merely existing, and constantly fighting to continue existing.

When the pandemic hit, we were temporarily relocated here to Margate, 80 miles away from home and our friends, to the nearest accessible hotel still open.

On October 3rd 2020, my mum's hips had gone to the point she could not stand or walk at all. Her leg ulcers were in so much agony she felt like she was going to have a heart attack and was screaming in pain. Were her hips broken beyond repair that she'll never be able to stand or walk again without that double hip operation the NHS have admitted she needs? How will we cope when we receive no help from social services? She has Addison's disease, is this Addisonian crisis? Is the pain in her ulcers going to cause a heart attack? What do we do? I'm doing too much physically trying to help her, damaging my own health, and my own heart cannot handle this much stress. What's going to happen to us?

Without my knowledge, my mum called an ambulance.

The paramedics didn't even want to take her to hospital, and were very dismissive, treating her as though she just had " anxiety". We (and she) pushed for her to be taken to hospital.

Our mum was in the Queen Elizabeth Queen Mother Hospital in Margate, Kent, for almost 8 weeks, during which time she was subject to constant abusive and poor treatment, and we were constantly having to complain to PALS. It was almost daily. They even overdosed her twice. I started to fear she was right about not coming back out. They're going to kill her by negligence, I thought.

Once, the fear that she wouldn't come out of hospital alive became too much. She needed me to be brave, and I couldn't hide my terror. "I can't talk to her, Sean, please tell her I'm ill" I told my brother one evening when we were due for her to call us.

After being in there for over 7 weeks, our mum told us over the phone "I've just been seen by two Occupational Therapists. They were amazed at how much my mobility has improved considering I've been bedbound for 7 weeks. They're saying I can come "home" soon".

"That's great news!" I said, so relieved and allowing myself to be hopeful again.

The very next day, I text my mum. But I don't hear back from her in hours. Neither does Sean. Then I receive a text from her merely saying her "asthma is very bad". We were worried she had Covid.

The next day, we got a call from a nurse on the 23rd of November 2020 saying our mother had Covid. Despite us being worried our mum would catch covid, something about them made us not trust them. We both sensed that they meant our mother harm. We asked for evidence that she had Covid, which was not given.

We got a phone call from Dr Christina Nikolova on the 24th of November. "If your mother's health deteriorates, we will not escalate".

"What does that mean?" I asked.

"We would not take her to intensive care, or make any effort to save her life. We would then only give palliative care" she told us.

This was our mother's life she was talking about. How dare they think they has the right to refuse our mum treatment to save her life?

"No, that is unacceptable, our mother does not consent to a DNR" I furiously told her.

"We will not escalate", she curtly and coldly repeated.

Panicked, I immediately took to Twitter and Facebook. We needed help. Our mother's life was in danger. They will not get away with this. I will not let them. They need to be exposed. We need advice.

I got a call from a friend, who is an ex-magistrate. "I've spoken to my friend, who is a solicitor", he said. " He has instructed that you write a letter to the Chief Executive, explaining that it is your mother's express wish that every possible service be rendered to prolong her life. Hand deliver it to her, and have her sign it."

I wasn't sure we had the time to hand deliver this. I figured sending an email to her and PALS would suffice, and serve as a paper trail, so to speak. I didn't want to just rely on this action. I wanted to look for other ways to prevent them doing this to her. The rest of that day and night is a bit of a blur.

The next day the 25th we got a phone call from a nurse. "We want to have a meeting with you at the hospital at 2pm. Only one of you can come", she told us.

" We both want to be there" I said.

"No just one of you" she said. How dare they? We are both her children and have equal right to involved in something so life and death.

" Well, I want to be there and I'm disabled and unable to propel my own wheelchair. It has to be pushed by my carer. You cannot refuse to allow me to come because I am disabled and need assistance".

She refused. I emailed the chief executive setting out what had been said in the phone call, and about an hour later we received another phone call from the hospital. " Ok, you can both come".

The friend who had advised us to contact the chief executive, also advised us to record any meeting conversations on our phones, but neither one of us are proficient with technology, and we were 80 miles away from our friends and had no one to help us. We couldn't work out how to work the app in time. We hoped our failure here wouldn't make the difference to whether our mum lived or died.

We were put in a tiny room with seven hospital staff and just the two of us. Is this amount of hospital staff necessary? I thought. For all their restrictions of how many people allowed per room, for their initial demand that only Sean could attend, why are they breaching their own rules, having seven of them, and only two of us, in this tiny claustrophobic room, stipulating no more than four people maximum on the poster on the wall? This is an ambush, I thought.

They kept interrupting us, and shouting over us, and contradicting each other, and they were vehemently trying to make a case to end our mother's life. They seemed absolutely desperate. "Dr Lyn" offensively tried to justify refusing our mother life- preserving treatment by comparing our mother's life to " a woman who could walk her dog".

Did he really just say that? Does he not see me sitting here in a wheelchair? Does he think I can walk a dog? Does he not realise my mum is my fulltime carer and I'm more disabled than she is? Does he not realise he's admitting he doesn't think I should be allowed to live?

Our mum hasn't been able to walk a dog in years, but her quality of life could instantly and significantally improve if they gave her a wheelchair. If they gave her that double hip replacement, they say she needs, then she could most likely walk a dog again. This notion that her life isn't worth anything is ideological. How dare they say the life she loves so much is worthless?

Why does he keep referring to mum as "he"? Is he faking his poor level of English to avoid our questions? If not, do they really think it's appropriate to have a doctor with such poor English talk to us about a subject so life and death?

This woman supposedly from safeguarding- why is she not saying anything? She's not safeguarding our mum. Or us. Who is she supposed to be "safeguarding"? Them?

"I'm doing everything I can" lied, Dr Malamis. "What more can I possibly do to save her?"

Is this prick for real? "You can take her to intensive care if she needs it. You can resuscitate her if her heart stops".

" It's hard for us to save her. Your mum keeps taking off the respirator", said a shockingly hostile nurse.

That's bollocks! I thought. I don't trust them for a second. They seem emotionally invested in wanting her dead. They seem to want her dead as much as we want her alive.

" If you withdraw treatment...", I started to say to Dr Malamis, to which he appeared to panic and shouted " I'm not withdrawing treatment! Who said I've withdrawn treatment?"

"Dr Nikolova said you would deny our mother treatment if our mother's health deteriorated". He then seemed to chuckle in relief, and said, "Well I'm not withdrawing treatment today or tomorrow."

"We, and our mother, do no consent to you withdrawing or denying our mum treatment at all. It is our mother's express wish that every service be rendered and every effort made to prolong her life. She does not consent to a DNR, and if you do not respect her wishes we will take legal action against you".

Dr Malamis' lie about "not withdrawing treatment today or tomorrow" brought a teensy bit of relief as I felt it had bought us a bit of desperately needed time, to contact the chief executive again, and gather ourselves and plan our next move to save her life. I had been running on empty.

There was some dispute between the hospital staff in that room about letting us see our mum, but they eventually agreed to let us see her.

They kept us waiting outside her room half an hour while they "tidied her up." What terrible state of neglect have they left her in? I thought, for them to be taking this long "tidying her up"? They've completely written her off.

"You have to go in one at a time" the hostile nurse from the meeting told us. "Because of covid". They love all this power, I thought.

I went in first. A nurse wheeled me in. When I went in, my mum was naked. I don't know why she was naked. I didn't think to ask. (After hearing the story of a nurse whose husband was murdered the same way, say that her husband was naked too, and that the hospital staff had written in his medical notes that this was done to stop him from trying to escape, I would bet my life this why my mother was naked. I knew her. It completely matched who she was, and what she told us the day the murdered her. Words cannot articulate how angry I am with myself for being so gullible, and for failing to save her.)

It was weird timing but I remember thinking how beautiful she looked.

"You're Stevie!" the male nurse said. Angela's told me all about you!" I thought this was inappropriate, considering the seriousness of the situation. I really wasn't in the mood to make small talk with this guy.

"Has she been taking the mask off?" I asked, but not believing for one second that she had.

"Err, no, not since my shift anyway. I've been told she has by some of the other nurses. I'm honestly shocked at how much she's deteriorated! I've been off for a few days and come back to find her like this!"

"Would you mind leaving us alone for a while please?" I asked.

"Angela, is that what you want?" He asked her.

"GET OUT NOW" she told him furiously. This scared me. She had spoken well of him before and was naturally such a warm and friendly person. She was lucid. She knew what they were doing to her.

He left.

She was clinging to the mask for dear life. We spent a few minutes in silence.

"Do you have any idea how much we f***ing love you? " I eventually said. She looked at me angrily, and despairingly.

She took the mask off for a moment to speak. " I do not consent to a DNR", she told me, staring deep into my eyes, deeply distressed. " I do not trust them" she said. "They're arseholes!"

Sean then came in. He said the nurse had allowed him. We were silent a while longer, and then she took the mask off again, to repeat her exact words. " I do not consent to a DNR. I do not trust them. They're arseholes!"

"Ok Mate, I'll take care of it, I told her".

I was too scared to touch her, or hold her hand, because they told us she had Covid. I was too scared to touch her, even knowing there was a chance this would be the last time I would be able to. I hate myself now for that, and I hated myself at the time.

We sat in abject fear, and in miserable silence for quite a while, with me wondering was it possible for us all to come through this. At some point, Hunger got the better of us, and she got no comfort by our presence. I have work to do to save her, I realised.

"We're going to go now mate, and get something to eat. You keep fighting your end, and we'll keep fighting our end. I'll take care of this". I reassured her.

She nodded. Her face was furious. She was determined to live. You could see she was fighting her hardest. I didn't want to leave her. I was terrified, and thought what if this is the last time I ever see her? But I had the hope that I could save her. I had work to do to try to save her.

As we were leaving, a nurse called out to us, "at least you have each other".

This felt like an attempt to try and to alleviate any guilt she felt. They were all acting like she was already dead. Like it was a done deal.

As the doctor had said "I won't withdraw treatment today or tomorrow", we have time. I'll write to the chief executive and she'll make sure they don't force a DNR. They'll be too scared of legal action, I thought.

We went back to the hotel to eat, regroup, and digest everything that the hospital staff had said.

At about 12.30 am, on November 26th 2020, I was in the middle of writing an email to Chief Executive Susan Acott, about everything that was said at the meeting, and by our mum. At which time, Sean got a phone call from a "Dr Rosie" from the hospital". I felt sick. I knew it was going to be bad.

Sean put the phone on loud speaker as he walked into my room that was adjoining his.

"Is our mum ok?" Sean asked.

The doctor replied " Err, not really, she's dying."

We knew instantly this was not natural. Someone (several of them) were killing her.

"Shall we come to the hospital?" Sean asked petrified.

The doctor said "you can, but she will probably be dead by the time you get here, she's taking her last breaths".

" What do you mean she's taking her last breaths? Did you take her off the respirator?" (That is what they called it at the meeting, but it just looked like an oxygen mask.)

The doctor said "yes".

Terrified and outraged, I then asked "You took her off the respirator while she was still breathing?

The Dr said "yes".

I shouted " put her back on IMMEDIATELY, she does not consent to a DNR and we do not consent to a DNR for her!".

The doctor refused. Rhetorically, I asked, "is what you're doing legal?"

"Yes", she lied.

"No, it isn't!" I shouted, and demanded they treat our mum immediately.

She kept refusing and I argued with her for ten minutes, all the while I could feel my mum fighting for her life on the other end of that phone, as hard as we were fighting for her. I could picture her physically struggling with them. We were running out of time.

Some nurse suddenly took the phone from the doctor and said " What's the problem?"

" You give our mum treatment immediately and you save her life!" I ordered. "She does not consent to a DNR and neither do we!"

" Oh!" She tutted. "She died ages ago!" 

For a few moments, my heart and brain froze.

Then reality struck. They've done it. They've dared. They've murdered her. How could they? How could I have let this happen? How did I fail her so badly? She's gone.

"Will you be coming to view the body?" The nurse asked.

I looked at Sean. He panicked. Crying, and shaking his head vehemently, he told me "No Steve, I can't! I can't see her like that!"

"Ok", I said. "Ummm...." I hesitated, not knowing what to do.

" It's just we need to know so we know whether to bother cleaning her up" was her response.

"Can you call us back please?" I asked.

After hanging up, Sean cried "For f**k's sake, they got mum!" and ran into the bathroom.

I felt like I should see her. To help me believe she was actually gone. I also felt for the sake of her dignity, I should go, forcing them to "clean her up". But it didn't matter. I would need Sean to push my wheelchair to get me there, and he didn't want to go. I couldn't force him, even if I wanted to, and I didn't want to force him. He was right, it would hurt too much to see what they had done to her. What if that same angry, determined-to-live look was frozen on her face? Or the look of horror, of knowing she was being being murdered?

Ten minutes later, they called again. I answered. It was the same insensitive nurse. "So will you be coming to view the body?"

"No, we won't be coming", I answered.

"Aww, It's hard isn't it?" She said, as if this was a natural death. As if there was nothing they could do to save her. As if she wouldn't have had another possible forty years left if it wasn't for what they did. As if this was the will of some higher power, rather than doctors' ideological ableism and financial incentives.

"Yeah...", I said numbly.

Clearly "Dr Rosie" and Dr Malamis, and Lynn and the others, knew their actions were illegal (murder), as they have lied in our mum's notes.

There are two different times of death, and the one matching the time they called us, they've lied and said she took the heart monitor and breathing apparatus off herself.

Our mum's medical chart shows that the last day we saw her, November 25th 2020, they had overdosed her. Her breaths had dropped to less than 12 per minute. They never told us they had overdosed her this time.

The coroner's evidence revealed the DNR was made on the 23rd of November. The DNR shows our mother was mentally sound, and had refused the DNR, and that Dr Denis Malamis went against her wishes and had not consulted us (her family, next of kin, and executors of her will).

The evidence shown to us by the coroner was the very first we heard about them using Midazolam on our mother, or the withdrawal of her of her regular meds, which should never have been stopped suddenly. This had been going on for days before that meeting. Evidently, they had lied their arses off.

Our mother was asthmatic, and had atrial fibrillation and Addison's disease. Midazolam was completely contraindicated for her. They should not have withdrawn her life preserving medication such as apixaban and bisoprolol suddenly, which is what they did, or at all, as this could have brought about her death. The drug chart also shows our mother was given metoprolol, completely contraindicated, as it lowers blood pressure, and our mother already suffered consistently low blood pressure. They clearly put her as much risk as they possibly could with the intent of killing her.

"If I ever have kids, they'll never know mum" Sean lamented a few days after her murder.

It was not inevitable that Sean would suffer this. Her death was not natural. She was not dying. They made her die. They scheduled the time they would do it. They panicked when they thought their plans could be foiled before they could finish her off. Before they could lose the money they would be paid to kill her.

This wasn't negligence. It was premeditated murder.

Our mum was murdered at 12.40 am November 26th 2020, the day before my birthday, and 2 years into our homelessness. She was 57.

My mum always used to say "this time (however many) years ago, I was in labour with you." It is a painful irony for me to think that so close to the day marking my birth she would be murdered. Our little family always felt my birthdays were cursed. Bad things kept happening on them. We were naturally anxious about my upcoming birthday. But none of us predicted this.

I have recurring nightmares where my mother is alive and I have to try and save her all over again. I cannot escape the memory of that helplessness.

There are some songs that have been ruined for me. "Don't fear the reaper" was one we would practice singing. I can't enjoy it now. "The reaper" didn't take my mum. Murderous NHS doctors and nurses did. Another song we would use for my singing practice was "Dido's lament". I have to try and force myself to live by the lyrics "remember me, but forget my fate" as they have ruined every good memory I have ever had of my mum.

As much as I try, I cannot separate what she was, from what they did to her. From what her end was. They have ruined every good memory I ever had in general. If I had have known I would have lived to see my mum murdered, I would have taken my own life. They have destroyed me, and my family, and the world for me. I resent my happy memories because I feel I was tricked and misled into suffering the worst thing anyone can suffer: a loved one murdered. I knew murders existed but I never believed it could happen to my mum, and that it would, or could, be done by our NHS when she was most vulnerable.

If you have been affected by this story, or had a similar experience and would like to share it, please get in touch and we would be happy to publish it.

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