'Death-row drug' used on stroke victim

A DAUGHTER who claims hospital staff tried to end the life of her elderly father has won the right to a new independent review of his medical treatment.

• Patricia and John MacGillivray at Gleneagles. Photograph: Neil Hanna

"Big John" MacGillivray, who greeted royalty, presidents and entertainment stars in his former job as head porter at the world-famous Gleneagles Hotel, was admitted to hospital last May after a suspected stroke.

But his daughter Patricia MacGillivray says the 79-year-old was given a potentially-lethal cocktail of drugs – including Midazolam, the sedation "drug of choice" of Death Row inmates – while in Perth Royal Infirmary and they were told he was expected to die.

Staff said he was "50 per cent brain dead" but when his family insisted he was taken off the sedative drug, he recovered and was able to leave hospital within ten days.

The family submitted formal complaints to both NHS Tayside and Tayside police. But a subsequent review of his case by a medical expert concluded that there was no evidence that staff had tried to kill the patient and a police investigation also drew a blank.

But following pressure from local politicians also dissatisfied with the outcome, Tayside police have now agreed to hold a second investigation into the case and seek a fresh medical opinion.

A spokeswoman for Tayside Police confirmed: "A senior officer is currently carrying out a review of our investigation into her (Patricia's] father's care whilst he was a patient at Perth Royal Infirmary. We have also asked that further medical opinion is sought."

Patricia said: "I'm absolutely delighted there's going to be a second independent review. I fundamentally believe hospital staff would have killed my father had I not intervened."

Patricia, 43, a hostess at Gleneagles' Restaurant Andrew Fairlie, said the family became immediately concerned about the level of medical care on the ward after John was admitted.

"It was atrocious," she said. "We as a family had to take care of my father's toileting needs. Later on, staff dropped him and showed little compassion.

"Myself, three sisters, two brothers and my dad's 14 grandchildren decided to take it in turns to mount a two-person 24-hour protection of him to make sure he came to no harm."

At 7am, on Sunday 24 May, the family say they were told John was "50 per cent brain dead" and would die that night.

"I was sitting at my father's bedside at 3am on the Monday morning and I suddenly got an instinctive feeling that I was seeing death being administered to my father."

"I asked the night nurse what the drugs were for and he replied 'to control his seizures'. My father had never had a seizure in his life. I now believe from my research they gave him drugs to induce seizures and then gave the 'death-row' drug to 'deal' with the seizures and kill him at the same time.

Patricia demanded the medication – which she later discovered was Midazolam – be stopped. "Instead of being 50 per cent brain dead, dying within hours, after our insisting the drugs were st