London (Parliament Politics Magazine) – A coroner has administered a warning after a 93-year-old woman with dementia passed after eating toxic laundry tablets she may have misunderstood for sweets because of their bright packaging.
How did Elizabeth Van Der-Drift mistake laundry tablets for sweets?
Elizabeth Van Der-Drift died from a variety of aspiration pneumonia, ingesting laundry tablets, and dementia. A carer described the inquest into her death that the capsules’ packaging “bore more than a passing similarity to a bag of sweets”, according to a Prevention of Future Deaths report (PFD).
Van Der-Drift lived with dementia for “several years” and regularly could not recognise when she had last eaten food, he stated. She would often go in pursuit of something to eat” and on 13 or 14 March “gained access to laundry detergent pills [or] pods that were brightly stained” and “bit into at least one of them.
The product was defined as “predominantly bright pink and white, with orange, yellow and green also present”. The receptacle had no “obvious design feature” that would make it challenging for someone with “even the most fundamental of manual dexterity” to access the “potentially sweet-like” pods.
Shortly after ingesting the product, Van Der-Drift was found complaining of stomach ache and shortness of breath. An ambulance was called and she passed in hospital days later. The inquest discovered that her death was accidental.
What warning did the coroner issue regarding product safety regulations?
The coroner Ian Potter cautioned that product safety regulations might produce “insufficient regard” to the risks posed to individuals with dementia. Potter, an assistant coroner for inner north London, expressed in the PFD: “It has long been acknowledged that products of this nature can pose risks to children; however, there appears to be less acknowledgement of the risks posed to those living with dementia or other forms of cognitive impairment.”
What are the potential risks associated with brightly colored laundry pods?
He expressed the “bright, eye-catching colours” of such tablets were an “industry-wide phenomenon”. As a result, shipping the warning to the individual manufacturer of the pods involved would be “shortsighted”, he stated. Instead, the report was published to the chief executive 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.
Why did the coroner believe existing safety rules are insufficient for those with dementia?
The coroner stated he was “well aware” of the Food Imitations (Safety) Rules 1989 but “it seems to me either that the rules themselves have insufficient regard to those living with dementia or other mental impairment, or that the application of the regulations does not come with sufficient rigour”. The regulations restrict the supply of products that are unsuitable for human consumption but are likely to be misunderstood for food and explicitly mention the risk to children.