Dear Sir or Madam,
I refer to the above named resident in your care home who is my mother.
I phoned Alan to remind him that my mother had an appointment at Hairmyres Hospital at 4 o`clock on 28 June 2011. Unfortunately I had to tell Alan that I would not be able to take my mother to the hospital on this date.
My brother George has recently obtained Power of Attorney for my mother`s welfare, and he advised that I should no longer visit my mother. So I have been told. I am left to hope that my brother George made the arrangements for my mother to attend the hospital.
Please could you inform me how my mother is since her attendance at Hairmyres Hospital. Please could you inform me if anyone has explained to my mother why I have not been able to see her and how she is coping.
I am very worried about recent events and the lack of communication from all sources is particularly troubling. I am also worried that my mother is not being informed about why things are happening. If it is not explained to her my mother will feel abandoned.
I send a stamped addressed envelope for an early reply.
There never was an answer. It seems as long as those concerned know there is a bit of paper called a Power of Attorney they feel free to deal with a close relative without the slightest bit of humanity or compassion. The fact that there was no court order to ban John Kilbride from visiting his mother was neither here nor there. John Kilbride supposed that as long as there was that bit of paper the authorities felt they were covered and in any case the only way to enforce the law was to engage with expensive lawyers. Residents in Morrieburn care home did not tend to have relatives who could afford to do that. The old person herself was safely locked in the care home. It was the perfect system for dealing with ordinary folk. He wrote again following his mother`s death on 2 August 2011:
Dear Sir or Madam,
I refer to my previous letter dated 12 July 2011 and sent recorded delivery with a stamped addressed envelope for a quick reply. I never did get a response to my letter.
I wanted to know if my brother George managed to arrange for my mother to be taken to Hairmyres Hospital for her appointment on 28 June 2011.
This is particularly concerning to me now because my mother died a few weeks later on (John got the date wrong here) 31 July 2011.
I would appreciate if you would answer my letter this time. By law, my brother no longer has Power of Attorney.
I also would like to know when my mother was taken to hospital before she died.
Of course, John Kilbride was already aware that his mother was not taken for her hospital appointment but he was keen to see what the care manager had to say about it. In due course back came the response. The letter was dated 5 August 2011.
Dear Mr Kilbride,
I write to acknowledge your letters dated 12 July and 2 August 2011.
Your original letter was received by me but because of the direction given to us by Ms Misha McTavish (Social Work Dept) we were required to inform her of any contact from you. We asked her to reply to the points made in your letter as she (unlike ourselves) was privy to all the facts regarding your mother and your family.
May I take this opportunity to offer my sympathy for your loss and to assure you that your mother was content during her time at Morrieburn House.
What a lie! His mother was never content in Morrieburn care home. She hated the place and felt dumped by the people she had cared most about. He noted that the care home manager did not answer any of his questions. For instance, she had nothing to say about the hospital appointment or the date his mother was taken to Hairmyres Hospital before she died. Moreover she did not substantiate any of the claims made by the solicitor about his interactions with his mother and the so-called effect on her. All she was prepared to say was that she did not have all the facts regarding his mother and the family. Probably sensing trouble, the care home manager let him know that it was the social worker who had made the decisions. John Kilbride found that very interesting. (He needed to look again at the Standards of Care to see what the responsibilities of the care home manager actually were)
The care home manager may, or may not, have passed on his first letter to the social worker for her to deal wtih - it was difficult to believe any of these people - but Misha McTavish certainly did not contact John Kilbride about it. Recalling that he had asked for the data held about him in the social work files, he had learnt that there was another matter which did not appear in the social work record. Misha McTavish had instructed the care home manager not to communicate with John Kilbride. Now why would the social worker do that and then hide the fact? Then again, why was his letter, which had been passed on to Misha McTavish, not in the social work file?
John Kilbride was still very upset about the treatment he had received when he had visited his mother on her death bed at Hairmyres Hospital . On 7 August 2011 he wrote to the complaints officer:
Dear Sir or Madam,
I refer to the patient Mrs Kilbride who died in Ward 13 on 29 July 2011 (correct date this time) and who was my mother.
After she died I visited my mother in room 8, ward 13.
I wanted to know the time when my mother died and who was with her, amongst other things.
The nurse told me that she would not provide me with any information regarding my mother, following my brother George Kilbride`s instructions.
It was a distressing day, and to be dismissed in this way by a nurse after I witnessed my mother on her death bed was very disturbing.
Is there some way I can get an explanation and answers to my questions?
There was a very quick response to this letter dated 12 August 2011.
Dear Mr Kilbride,
I write further to Michelle Nobes` letter of 9 August 2011 [? Was this the complaints officer?] I have been in touch with my colleagues and hope the following is helpful in responding to the concerns you raised.
Firstly, may I begin by offering my sincere condolences regarding the death of your mother Mrs Kilbride. I realise that this must be a very difficult time for you.
Unfortunately, one of the family members that was present in the ward following your mother`s death advised that he had power of attorney over your mother`s affairs. As next of kin Mr George Kilbride specifically advised that you could attend the ward to see your mother, but if you required any further information you had to contact him directly.
As you will appreciate this is a very difficult situation for ward staff and they have to abide by the wishes of the Mr George Kilbride as he has power of attorney. In the circumstances I am unable to answer your questions and can only suggest that you take this up with your family or review the publicly available information that was recorded by South Lanarkshire Council Registrar`s office when your mother`s death was registered.
I am sorry that I have been unable to assist you further on this occasion.
Yours faithfully,
General Manager Hairmyres Hospital
The sentence that jumped out at him was this one: Unfortunately, one of the family members that was present in the ward following your mother`s death... It gave him two pieces of information. It informed him that there was more than one family member present in the ward AFTER his mother was dead. It told John Kilbride that one of the family members there was his brother George who, no doubt, had been picked up by his sister Irene in her car. It confirmed his suspicions about the solitary death scene. No-one had actually visited his mother in Hairmyres Hospital when she was alive. But then he knew that George could never have faced his mother given how angry she had been the last time he had seen her and what he had done behind her back. He could not even face her when she was dead but probably hovered about the nurses` station awaiting the paperwork he needed to register his mother`s death. After all he had said to John that he wanted to remember his mother the way she was. "The rat !" John Kilbride exclaimed when he put the pieces together.
He knew it! His mother had died alone - there was not even a Get Well card on her locker.
John Kilbride did go on to obtain a copy of his mother`s death certificate and according to that, his mother had died at 5 o`clock in the evening on 29 July 2011. The cause of death was ischaemic heart disease and hypertension. When he checked the letter in regard to the hospital appointment that his mother was never taken to, it was an appointment at the cardiology department. Could she have been saved? Well the consultant who made the appointment for his mother must have thought so. Then who had made the decision that his mother should not attend?
He wrote back to Hairmyres Hospital, General Manager, 22 August 2011:
Dear Madam,
Thank you for your letter to me dated 12 August 2011 regarding my mother Mrs Kilbride.
I write to inform you that my brother George Kilbride misled the nursing staff when he claimed he had power of attorney. A power of attorney ends on the death of the granter. George Kilbride had no right to instruct anybody to withhold information from me about my mother.
Details about this can be obtained from the website of the public guardian at www.publicguardian-scotland.gov.uk.
My mother`s death certificate does not contain the information I was looking for. I wished to know the following:
(1) When was my mother taken to Hairmyres hospital?
(2) Did anybody visit my mother when she was alive?
In order to begin to come to terms with what has happened I need to know how it was for my mother at the end. I hope you will be able to provide me with this information.
Yours faithfully,
Letters began to fly back and forth at an increasing rate and Jane Connelly suggested to John that he should get himself a file in order to keep his correspondence organised. That was an irksome task and after John discussed the matter with her she agreed to take on the role of secretary. He had no clear idea where he was heading, but his dreadful sense of injustice drove him on regardless. Somehow he needed to pin these people down and get them to admit what they had done.
He wrote to Ms Richards and his letter was dated 25 August 2011:
Dear Ms Richards,
I write in connection with my mother Mrs Kilbride who died on 29 July 2011.
I understand that George Kilbride is acting as executor but since the bereavement there has been a breakdown in communication within the family.
In these circumstances, and given that I am a beneficiary of my mother`s will, I am writing to request a copy of the will.
Yours faithfully,
There was another letter from the solicitor dated 26 August 2011:
Dear Mr Kilbride,
We refer to our letter to you of 20 July 2011 when we requested that you provide us with an accounting of the £500 withdrawn from your mother`s account and when we also intimated that changing the locks was unnecessary. We note you have not yet provided us with that accounting.
We confirm that we are instructed to act in the winding up of your late mother`s estate and enclose a copy of her last Will for your information...
We will in due course write to you with our calculation of the balance due to you.
It has been arranged that the remainder of the contents of your late mother`s property were to be uplifted by the British Heart Foundation but the locks have been changed. It is assumed you have as previously suggested gone ahead and changed the locks notwithstanding our advice to the contrary, and if this is so we would ask that you return the keys as a matter of urgency as the house is being given back up to the Council.
We shall be pleased to hear from you or your Solicitor on this matter.
Yours faithfully,
John Kilbride was aware that something peculiar was going on in relation to the keys of his mother`s former flat. He had received a telephone call out of- the- blue from the Housing Department asking him about his mother`s keys. He explained that he did not have the keys but wished access to his mother`s flat and informed the housing officer that under Scots Law he was entitled to a proportion of his mother`s moveable estate. He did not want the flat cleared until he had had the opportunity to go through the contents. It took days to get this organised - perhaps the housing officer disappeared to get legal advice, he did not know. Whatever, he felt there was a reluctance on the part of the Housing Department to accommodate him.
He especially wanted access to his mother`s flat in order to get hold of the ornamental budgies that were perched on his mother`s window sill. He had a particular fondness for them, although old fashioned, he knew they would always remind him of his mother. The last time he had peered through the window, before the windows were blanked out, they were still there beside the dilapidating plants and he felt sure that nobody else would ever want them.
As it was, it was the other members of his family who had been systematically removing the bulk of his mother`s property and it looked like as far as they were concerned the remainder they did not want could go to the British Heart Foundation - or so they told the solicitor. This was somewhat ironic given his mother`s circumstances. They had the key, not him. If he had to guess who would pull a stunt like this, falsely fingering him to the solicitor and suggesting that he had changed the lock, whilst looting his mother`s flat, he would have said that it was the kind of thing his sister Irene would do. She was conniving enough and there was no love lost between them. Was she playing for more time to get in and out of the flat before the council took it over? He was a bit confused.
Then John Kilbride gained corroboration of his suspicions when the housing officer eventually got back to him on the telephone to say that his sister Irene had passed them the wrong key. She was going to be escorted back into his mother`s flat by a housing officer, [The Housing Department had changed the lock as soon as they found they had the wrong key] and in due course arrangements would be made for him. Unbelievable, thought John Kilbride. He knew his sister well enough to know that `passing in the wrong key`, getting caught, and then blaming him was typical of his sister. She had attempted to work a fly one, playing for more access time to her mother`s flat. Yet even after that, she was being given priority of access by the Housing Department. He often wondered about his sister`s ability to play these people. All of this unravelled in time, but before that:
He wrote back to the solicitor 29 August 2011.
Dear Ms Richards,
I refer to your letter to me dated 26 August 2011 in reference to my late mother Mrs Kilbride.
I explained the withdrawal of £500 from my mother`s account in my letter to you dated 12 July 2011, but I will do so again. My mother signed a mandate for the Clydesdale bank on 9 June 2011, so that I could go to the bank on her behalf and pay her bills for her. Both of our signatures appear on the mandate, and I enclose a copy of this document. She did not want George Kilbride to have control of her finances. [Here John Kilbride is having a dig at the solicitor who produced the POA without his mother`s signature]
My mother was staying at Morrieburn Care Home at this time. Another thing my mother wanted was access to her flat which she did not have because George Kilbride had her key and he did not visit her. [Actually who had the key, or keys, is a bit confusing, but certainly not John Kilbride or his mother] This can be confirmed by the visitors book. As the weeks passed, her cardigan became very stained and amongst other things she needed a change of clothes. There were only so many clothes I could buy for her, not being sure of her size, and so on. So she instructed me to have the lock changed. I agreed with her that this was necessary in the circumstances.
She also needed access to her correspondence and an opportunity to tidy up her affairs. It should be noted that her copy of the Power of Attorney was addressed to Burns Park, not Morrieburn Care Home. It is not for anybody to say that gaining access to her flat was not necessary. For one thing it was vital if she wanted to handle her own affairs, which she did. [He is having another dig at the solicitor who said that it was not NECESSARY for his mother to have access to her home, (well not in those words) and therefore by implication not necessary she have access to the POWER OF ATTORNEY]
I enclose a copy of the receipt for changing the lock. It is dated 21 June 2011.
I quote from your letter:
It is assumed you have as previously suggested gone ahead and changed the locks notwithstanding our advice to the contrary...
Please note that nobody advised me not to change my mother`s lock. If anybody had given me this advice it would have been against my mother`s wishes and I could never have agreed to it on 21 June 2011. What happened was that in my letter to you dated 12 July 2011, I advised you that I had changed my mother`s lock. My mother was alive then. Why would you advise me to go against my mother`s wishes? It seems that matters have become somewhat confused. What happened was that in answer to my letter I was told that changing the lock was not necessary but I have explained that it was.
I quote from your letter.
It had been arranged that the remainder of the contents of your late mother`s property were to be uplifted by the British Heart Foundation but the locks have been changed.
This suggests that after my mother died I have gone ahead and changed the locks and so the arrangement to have the remainder of the contents of my mother`s property uplifted could not go ahead. I do not know who you have been listening to but all of this is rubbish. I changed the lock on 21 June 2011, and George Kilbride changed the lock again the very next day, and I informed you of this in my letter 12 July 2011. Changing the lock was a `fait accompli` on the 21 June 2011, not something that I have `gone ahead` with since, and it was undone by George Kilbride on 22 June 2011.[He later questions this date. It was actually the same day] I have never been inside my late mother`s flat since 21 June 2011.
The lock that I obtained for my mother was a Carl F thumb screw lock and I still have the set of 3 keys in my possession. George Kilbride was so swift in changing the lock again that I never had the opportunity to pass spare keys to the family. I learned that George Kilbride went to the Housing Department to arrange to have another lock, while claiming he had power of attorney, and it is on the record. The lock that is now on the door at Burns Park is not a Carl F thumb screw lock. It is a lock supplied by the Housing Department. As I have stated I have not had access to my mother`s house since 21 June 2011. My mother never had access at all, unfortunately. She had been totally defeated.
If the British Heart Foundation have not been able to uplift the remainder of the contents of my late mother`s property I cannot help...
Please note that in your letter 26 August it states that a copy of the will is enclosed. There was no copy of my mother`s will in the envelope and I would ask you to send me a copy. [He wants to check the list of beneficiaries because he believes some have been missed.]
I would also ask you if my brother, George Kilbride, has given you a full list of the beneficiaries of the will, because I do not trust him to have done so. My mother had more than four children...
Yours faithfully,
John Kilbride was indeed highly suspicious of the executor of the will, George Kilbride, and his side kick Irene Kilbride. He had been falsely accused about keys and `interactions with his mother` which resulted in him being banned from seeing her, and he was angry and determined to have no more of it. It mattered little to him about his mother`s will except to expose the disgraceful behaviour of his siblings. He knew that no mention would ever be made by George or other members of their disgusting family that there were two brothers Dan and Alan, who were also beneficiaries of the will. Pointing this out would pull everybody`s inheritance down, including his own, and he did not care one bit about it. After all Scots Law was in place to provide justice. The truth was his mother had six children. John Kilbride was also highly suspicious of the solicitor. He had a covering letter informing him that a copy of the will was enclosed, only it wasn`t.
Then there came this weird other letter from the solicitor dated 30 August 2011 which was written before she could have received his last correspondence. (29 August 2011)
Dear Mr Kilbride,
We acknowledge receipt of your letter of 25 August 2011 which has just reached us today which has probably crossed with our letter to you of 26 August 2011. Just in case the letter did not reach you we attach a copy for your reference together with a copy of your late mother`s will. [Well isn`t that one of the strangest coincidences? They are sending another copy of the will - just incase the letter did not reach him ? ]
We understand the locks were not in fact changed and that you have obtained keys from the Council for access for the purpose of obtaining some of the contents of the property. [No he had not obtained keys; he would be accompanied into the flat, same as his sister, because the Housing Department changed the lock and they had the key. All of this did make John Kilbride wonder about the quality of evidence these solicitors were in the habit of using whilst sending out intimidating letters.]
If you have any queries we shall be happy to hear from you or your Solicitor. [`No,` thought John Kilbride. `You will not be hearing from another solicitor; one is quite enough.`]
What a difference a day makes! He had caught two scoundrels in the one net: his sister and the solicitor. When he did get escorted into his mother`s flat he was devastated to discover that the budgies were gone. There was the dining room table but only one chair. The intention must have been there to remove the whole suite but somehow no-one had figured out how to remove the legs of the table in order to get it through the narrow passageway and out the front door. He decided he would take it. It only took him a few minutes to screw off the legs.
Then something else began which was strange. He started to get text messages from his brother Robert but no explanation. There were phone calls but he did not pick up the phone. There was an answerphone message from Robert who only said he must speak to him in person. John Kilbride decided to write:
Dear Robert,
I am aware that you have been trying to contact me on the phone. I will give you a few examples of the kind of phone messages I have received from my family in recent months which should explain why I now find phone messages from the family unacceptable.
`Don`t take this the wrong way, but if you go to see your mother you`ll be arrested.
This was followed by a frantic week-end of text messages and phone calls to me about a wheelchair which I had delivered on the Friday. Bizarre to say the least.
There was a lull in communication for 5 weeks, while my mother languished alone in the care home. Then `Do you want to see your mother before she goes to the morgue? ` That was George. `Make up your mind.` (Irene)
This was followed by a message about the funeral
`There`s only one seat in the car.`
When I protested that I had a partner of 20 years.
`She`s not going.` (Irene)
It`s not that I`ve taken these messages out of context. It`s that there was no context, and these cryptic messages are typical of the level of communication I usually get.
In my family treating me in an off-hand and unkind way is considered normal. When I tell other people about it they shake their heads.
So by all means if you think you have something to communicate do so. But do so in writing.
John
John Kilbride was not finished being angry. He was not going to allow his brother George Kilbride to get away with it either. Angrily he wrote?
Dear George,
DEATH OF OUR MOTHER
I am writing to you to request information following the recommendations of the solicitor, the care home manager of Morrieburn, and the General Manager of Hairmyres hospital.
(1) When did my mother arrive in Ward 13?
(2) How long was she there before she died?
(3) Was anybody present in ward 13 when she was alive?
(4) Why did you only allow me to see my mother when she was dead?
As you might remember I was present at the passing of my father when I was able to alert the nursing staff who thanked me. It enabled them to prepare my father for visitors.
So I was totally shocked when I saw my dead mother. Her eyes and mouth were open in a horrified stare because rigor mortis had set in. This told me that my mother died alone and was not at peace and nobody had been there to close her eyes.
Please write to answer my questions. This is a very emotional topic and I know how difficult it would be for you to discuss this with me on the phone.
Yours faithfully,
PS
I enclose a copy of the General Manager`s letter and must inform you a POA ends on the death of the granter. So you abused that bit of paper. Unfortunately nursing staff are not aware of the law, and I have been forced to write to you for answers.
Despite the difficulties John Kilbride began to have a sense that he was not disempowered, that he could gain control, and that although doing something for his mother when she was alive was forever impossible, he could still be her champion after she was dead.
The next day there was a thud through his letterbox.
There was one awful HOWL.
"What is it?" asked Jane Connelly.
He threw the bit of paper at her and she picked it up and read it and understood.
GEORGE WAS DEAD.
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