Altnagelvin Hospital in Derry confirmed yesterday that an investigation is to be carried out into how a 78-year-old patient sustained 34 fractures to her ribs after she died in the hospital.
Maureen McGinley, Orchard Street in Strabane, Co Tyrone, was admitted to the hospital on December 30th of last year after she had injured herself in a fall from her bed. She died three days later.
Yesterday her son James said a postmortem examination was carried out after her body was transferred to a Belfast hospital.
"The coroner's office sent a letter to our family doctor. When he read the letter he contacted us straight away asking us to come to his surgery.
"When he told us of the contents of the letter we were shattered and we are still extremely upset by what has happened to our mother after her death," said Mr McGinley.
"Just what did happen is something we want desperately to know. How can a woman have 34 breakages to her ribs and those breakages happened after she died?
"After our mother had died, we arranged for the undertaker to go to the morgue in Altnagelvin Hospital and collect her body but the body was sent to Belfast for the postmortem and she wasn't returned home for another three days.
"That in itself was very difficult for us, but to later find out the results of the postmortem has just caused our family dreadful grief. We were grief-stricken after she died and now we're grief-stricken over what happened to her body after her death.
"We want answers. How did it happen? That's all we want to know. Nobody has given us any answers and it's torn us apart. We are trying through our solicitor to get answers from the coroner's office.
"There was no suggestion of these broken bones before she died so how were the bones broken after she died? It makes no sense at all. She was fragile but not that fragile," Mr McGinley said.
"How do you get 34 broken bones by being taken from her hospital bed in Derry to a postmortem in Belfast? That's all we want to know," he added.
In a statement yesterday Altnagelvin Hospital said: "Now that this has been brought to our attention, we need to undertake an investigation."