Grandad found hanged at DRI
An inquest heard yesterday Albert Banks was kept at Derbyshire Royal Infirmary after his family made staff aware of his suicide threats.
But ward sister Elizabeth Richards said she did not have time to carry out a full assessment of the 88-year-old's condition.
Miss Richards also said the ward was short-staffed because four nurses were on maternity leave and another staff member was ill.
About two hours after making his threats, Mr Banks was found hanged by his oxygen tube in the toilets.
Miss Richards told Derby Coroner's Court: "I believed that while he stayed with us on the ward, he was safe. I fully accept Mr Banks was extremely low and distressed. But on a regular basis we do get patients saying 'I want to die; I can't go on; I've had enough'.
"I have never, ever known anybody commit suicide in hospital in a medical ward."
Miss Richards told the inquest she was initially reluctant to question Mr Banks about the threats because he was with his family.
Once visiting hours had finished, she spoke to Mr Banks because he refused to eat but did not talk to him about his mental state because she said she had not had time to think about how to raise the subject.
Kirsten Heaven, representing Mr Banks' daughter, Claire Scott, asked Miss Richards whether she had time to give the patient further investigation or medical attention.
Miss Richards replied: "Not at that time, no."
Twenty minutes after the pensioner refused to eat, Miss Richards saw Mr Banks was missing from his bed. She raised the alarm and a healthcare assistant helped to force the locked toilet door.
Staff at the hospital spent 30 minutes trying to revive Mr Banks.
Matthew Sephton was the duty doctor the day Mr Banks, of Matlock Road, Chaddesden, died, his first official day on the ward as part of a four-month placement.
Dr Sephton was informed about the pensioner saying he wanted to go home and kill himself by the ward sister but did not go and see him.
Dr Sephton told the inquest: "It generated shock at what he had said and a level of concern, but a level of concern that related to him going home.
"The fact we had no intention of sending him home allayed those concerns to a certain point. He was not going home and therefore in my mind he was in a place of safety."
The doctor was asked by Ms Heaven if he felt comfortable in not going back to assess the patient.
He said: "I felt that immediate risk was allayed but perhaps he should have been reviewed."
Mr Banks, a retired welder, was admitted to the DRI in March last year with breathing problems related to heart disease.
Nine days later, on April 2, doctors told him they could not operate on him unless his condition improved but the grandfather feared he was going to die, according to his daughter, Janet Fleming.
Mrs Fleming, who visited her father hours before he was found hanged, said: "He was in a terrible mood. He was really angry and upset because he said the doctor told him he could do nothing else for him.
"That's when he said he wanted to go home and commit suicide. He kept saying 'take me home; I'm going to hang myself. I can't live like this'.
"He had been active all his life. Being confined just finished him off."
Mrs Fleming said her father had no history of depression. He was diagnosed with aortic stenosis, a heart disease, two years earlier.
Dr David Green, who carried out a postmortem examination on Mr Banks, said the pensioner died from suspension by ligature.
The inquest continues.
