AN elderly woman who suffered from dementia has died after mistaking laundry capsules “for sweets” prompting an urgent warning from a coroner.
Elizabeth van der Drift, 93, was found on 19 March complaining of stomach ache and shortness of breath after ingesting the toxic laundry tablets and later died in hospital.
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An inquest after her death found that the elderly woman’s fatality was a result of the hazarders consumption.
It also found aspiration pneumonia and dementia as contributing factors.
The inquest heard how the laundry pod packaging “bore more than a passing resemblance to a bag of sweets” according to the Prevention of Future Deaths report (PFD).
Based in central north London, the assistant coroner Ian Potter expressed his fears that regulation may pay “insufficient regard” to the risks posed to dementia sufferers.
Potter went on to explain how van der Drift had suffered from dementia for “a number of years” and would often “go in search in something to eat”.
He revealed that in mid-March the pensioner had “gained access to laundry detergent tablets or pods that were brightly coloured” and “bit into at least one of them”.
When describing the product that was later found as one factor into van der Drift’s death, Potter explained that there was no element of the design to prevent someone with “even the most basic of manual dexterity” to access the “sweet-like” pods.
Despite Ms van der Drift being found a short time after consuming the product and an ambulance being called, she died in hospital a few days later.
A reports from The Prevention of Future Deaths recognised the known risks of laundry products to children yet queried whether the same had been discussed for those living with forms of “cognitive impairment”.
The coroner agreed that the brightly coloured packaging was a recognised design for this type of product and as a result to send a warning to the individual manufacturer responsible would be “short-sighted”.
The report was later sent to the chief executive officer of the Office for Product Safety and Standards, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care and the director general of the UK Cleaning Product Industry Association.
Those who have been issued with such a warning must respond by 8 October unless the coroner chooses to prolong this time frame.
