A nurse at a mental facility, where a 20-year-old woman died, has denied falsifying records and knowing other staff were doing so.
Registered mental health nurse Blessing Imaikop was giving evidence on day eight of the inquest into Molly-Star Kirk, who was found dead in her room at Farndon Unit in Newark on May 29, 2022.
During the inquest, previous witnesses have revealed a culture on the Aster Ward at the unit of falsifying and rewriting medical records as well as failure to complete mental health observations.
Coroner Laurinda Bower told the hearing at Nottingham Coroner’s Court that Molly had been in long term care from 2017 until her death and had been a patient in Newark since October 2021.
Nurse Blessing, as she was referred throughout the inquest, was working the day before and on the day of Molly's death.
As the qualified person in charge, the majority of nurse Blessing's answers to questions at the inquest were "I can't remember", "I can't recall" or "I can't say".
She started working at Farndon Unit as a health care assistant in November 2020 as she needed to work on her nurse qualification after moving from Nigeria. She started working as a registered nurse in early 2020 for Elysium, which runs the unit.
She started working at Aster ward in 2022 which she described as more "challenging" and "different" as there were more frequent incidents, self-harm and a need for restraint.
At every shift it was mandatory to have two registered nurses, however, nurse Blessing admitted that more often than not, she was the only nurse on duty.
As the registered nurse, she was the one in charge of the shifts, organising the rotas, supplying medication to patients and conducting physical health checks.
She said that she didn't know of staff falsifying or rewriting documents such as the observations sheet and not conducting observations until Molly died.
"I wasn't aware and that is all I can say,” she said.
The day before Molly’s death, nurse Blessing was the only registered nurse on shift and despite healthcare assistant Joel Davies having given evidence of Molly having several seizures throughout the day, headbanging walls and a window, convulsing, Blessing Imaikop said she could only remember one of the seizures and to not having been told about Molly’s “behavioural disturbance”.
As the registered nurse on shift, she should have been aware of the patient’s care plans and changes made to them, which she wasn’t.
Between 1pm and 1.55pm, Molly had the second seizure of the day, which nurse Blessing attended, however, the physical and neurological assessment records were insufficient to describe the situation and Molly’s condition.
Around 1.55pm Molly used the phone to contact 999 to report her seizures and ask for help. The phone was then taken away from her by a staff member.
The emergency services were told on another call soon after not to send an ambulance and that it was a prank.
Despite Molly being described previously as being very distressed on the day, nurse Blessing said to not recall that or the majority of events on the day, including Molly having to be restrained in holds.
Molly was administered medication by nurse Blessing that caused rapid tranquillisation and would require physical observations every 15 minutes for the first hour, which did not happen, failing to follow Elysium’s policy on rapid tranquilisation on several occasions.
The nurse should have also spoken to a doctor before administrating intramuscular medication to an agitated patient, which didn’t happen.
Blessing Imaikop was also the only registered nurse on shift on the day of Molly’s death, May 29 and despite being in charge of the shift, she never did the patient’s mental health observations.
Around 9am, the healthcare assistant Ebo Ahon reported back to the nurse that Molly declined verbally her morning medication, which she couldn’t be forced to take.
The court was told that around noon a member of staff reported back to the nurse that Molly had declined her lunchtime medication, however, CCTV footage shows that no one spoke with Molly at that time.
Molly was meant to be checked 12 times an hour, the equivalent of once every five minutes, which the observation sheet shows to have been completed, however, CCTV footage revealed that it didn’t happen.
There was also a restriction in place that said that Molly had to be out of her room between 8am and 8pm, however, the nurse said that because Molly was reported to be asleep she was fine to stay in her room.
After being asked several times if she partook in any of the ward’s malpractices and denied it, nurse Blessing said “I can’t say for sure” and that she wasn’t aware of it.
“I am going to suggest in fact that you were not just aware of it but that you were also part of the problem because you were making entries in these records that were not accurate,” said the coroner.
Mr Ahon was meant to do observations again between 2pm and 3pm. However, the inquest was told someone else signed his name on the form to make it look like he did it between 2pm and 2.10pm.
The hearing was told that under Mr Ahon’s name, it was visible the initials BI, which point towards Blessing Imaikop, however, nurse Blessing denied writing those entries on the observation booklet despite being seen with it throughout that time on CCTV.
“That doesn’t look like my writing,” she said.
At 2.10pm, nurse Blessing checks on Molly for 20 seconds but didn’t add it to the observations.
Around 2.30pm she was called to Molly’s room by Mr Ahon who reported her as looking grey and blue and unresponsive.
She said that she pulled her alarm but there was no response and that she tried to contact the unit coordinator, Luther Washington, but there was no response.
Mr Ahon and Tamzin Brentall were in the room according to CCTV camera but nurse Blessing said she didn’t remember staff being there so she didn’t start CPR straight away because “I didn’t have any reassurance that anyone was coming.”
“This idea that no one would come to you is false,” the coroner responded.
There was a delay of about three minutes from the alarm being raised until CPR started and there was about 14 minutes and 48 seconds until the defibrillator, which was located in the office, seconds away from Molly’s room, arrived at her side.
Registered nurse Emmanuel Darko, who was working at another ward at the moment had to intervene and help with CPR and resuscitation attempts describing nurse Blessing as “she was tired, exhausted, and “upset and crying.”
Paramedics first arrived at 14.46pm, however, Molly was pronounced dead at 3.18pm.
The inquest continues.
