The daughter of a woman who died six days after being taken from her home in Wexford has said she tried to convince her mother to go to a nursing home, writes Fiona Gartlandin Enniscorthy and Christine Newman
Evelyn Joel (58) died after she was admitted to Wexford General Hospital on January 1st, suffering from malnutrition. She had had multiple sclerosis for 10 years and also suffered from arthritis.
She was living with the family of her daughter, Eleanor, on the Cluain Dara estate on the outskirts of Enniscorthy.
Speaking to The Irish Times yesterday evening, Eleanor Joel, who is four months pregnant, said she had given her mother forms to fill out for the Spring Valley nursing home, but she would not co-operate.
"My mother was an independent woman," she said. "We could talk about anything. She was never difficult to deal with, but she was stubborn and very headstrong. If she didn't want to do it, she wasn't going to."
Ms Joel said she did not consider having her committed. "My mother was never that bad until a few weeks ago. She would eat a bit of what was going. I used to give her custard and soft stuff."
But, she said, when her mother's partner died in December, she stopped talking. "She didn't want to know. She wouldn't wear the nappies any more, and I got too tired to keep making her. She was so heavy even though there wasn't a pick on her, and with me the way I am it was hard."
Ms Joel called the doctor for her mother on New Year's Day, and an ambulance arrived to take her to hospital. "She was lying in her own poo when they came for her all right, but there was no maggots on her," she said.
Ms Joel also said that although she did not talk to some members of the extended family, she would have let them visit if they had called to the house. "I miss her, I wish she was here now, she was my best friend," she said.
Earlier, on RTÉ's Liveline, Ms Joel said she spoke to her mother regularly before her partner died in mid-December. "Every day, every hour, you could say. She used to talk to me about everything really and then I went up and she wouldn't talk to me at all."
Asked by presenter Joe Duffy if her mother had any contact with a doctor or with medical or social services, Ms Joel replied "No."
Duffy asked if she was tempted to try and contact social services as her mother got worse. "Very tempted, Joe, very tempted," she replied.
Asked what her mother would say to her, she said: "She said 'No, leave it alone, I don't want help. I don't want to go to a nursing home, I don't want to see doctors, I don't want nurses or nobody'."
Asked why she was afraid of going against her mother's wishes, she said: "Because she'd probably eat the head off me or something."
She added: "When I told her I had to get her an ambulance and she said No and that was her last word to me. Before that she just kept saying she wasn't hungry."
Gardaí investigating the death have said that they will want to question Mrs Joel's family again.
"Mrs Joel's daughter came to speak to us on a voluntary basis and we will invite her to come in and talk to us again," a spokesman said. "We are treating this case no differently than any other sudden death. We will be speaking to everyone involved and will prepare a file for the coroner."
An incident room has been set up at Enniscorthy Garda station and a written report is expected from State pathologist Prof Marie Cassidy in the next week or two.
An inquest will probably be held within the next couple of months.