Mother-of-two died after suffering a brain injury from drinking too much water

An “AMAZING mum” died from a brain injury after drinking too much water.

Michelle Whitehead died in 2021 after being admitted to the Millbrook Mental Health Unit in Sutton-in-Ashfield, Notts.

An inquest into her death found that Michelle drank an excessive amount of water on the afternoon of May 5, two days after she was admitted.

The condition, known as psychogenic polydipsia, is common in patients with psychiatric disorders.

But NHS staff on the ward at the time failed to diagnose the disorder in the 45-year-old.

And she was allowed to continue to have unsupervised access to water in her room.

Staff later gave her sedatives to calm her down and she fell asleep, the inquest was told.

Michelle had essentially fallen unconscious and into a coma.

But it took staff four hours to notice a change in her breathing and another fifteen minutes to move her into the recovery position.

Michael, Michelle's husband of 22 years, said healthcare staff should have realized something was “very wrong”.

He told the BBC: “If they had acted sooner, Michelle would have been taken to intensive care [intensive care unit] and set up an IV.

“That would have saved her life.”

Michelle was admitted to King's Mill Hospital.

The mother-of-two, from Rainworth, Nottinghamshire, died there on May 7, 2021.

Michael said the pair met on a bus when he was 17 and Michelle was 15 – they were together for 30 years and shared two boys.

Michelle left her job as a pediatric nurse when one of the couple's sons was born with Down syndrome.

Before her death, she was a full-time caregiver for 19 years.

The jury ruled on the balance of probabilities that she had died after becoming acutely overhydrated.

This leads to severely low sodium levels, causing swelling in the brain and fatally injuring it.

Her medical cause of death was hyponatremic encephalopathy, acute hyponatremia, and psychogenic polydipsia.

Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust admitted for the second time eight failings in the care Michelle received while at Millbrook.

She was previously admitted in 2018 after an acute nervous breakdown.

Deficiencies ranged from staff not adhering to confidentiality policies when Michelle was sedated, to inadequate observations due to being 'distracted' by mobile phones.

The investigation into Michelle's death also found that there was a ten-minute delay in allowing paramedics into the building.

Following the inquest, coroner Laurinda Bower sent a Preventing Future Deaths report to Trust CEO, saying more people could die “unless action is taken”.

Ifti Majid, CEO of the trust, expressed his condolences and apologies to Michelle's family.

He told the BBC: “We are considering the findings of the jury and the coroner.

“We recognize that there were aspects of care that were not of the quality they should have been and will address the concerns raised, improving the experience for patients now and in the future.”