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A FAMILY were distraught to get a phone call in the early hours of the morning to hear their relative had got out of a care home and injured herself.
Daughter Claire Stokes from Walton was called around 4am on Saturday, November 25 to hear her mother, Fay Stokes, 87, was found injured in Spital Road in Maldon.
Fay suffers from advanced dementia and had recently been moved to Maldon Lodge Care Home in Lodge Road, Dykes Chase, in Maldon following the death of her husband.
The vulnerable woman was said to have been found by a milkman before the police were alerted.
It is believed she had got out of the care home before wandering the freezing cold streets of Maldon, wearing little clothing. It is not known how long she was outside.
Daughter Claire Stokes said: “I got a phone call at about 4am from the police saying I have your mother here with hardly any clothes on and she has bruises on her front so they believed she had fallen over.
“The police asked if I could get to Broomfield Hospital as soon as possible. My mum is still in hospital now and she’s not going back to that care home.
“She has advanced dementia. She’s so confused where she is and she doesn’t even remember falling over.”
Fay was found with cuts and bruises and the clothes she was wearing were bloodstained.
Claire said: “It was horrible and it must have been scary for her as well. A milkman found her on somebody’s drive before the police ascertained where she was.
“The police phoned the care home and they didn’t even know she had got out. There’s a fire door near her room and I can’t think of any other way she could have done it.
“The care home apologised and said they are short of staff and they asked if we wanted to have a discussion but I didn’t really want to, I said I haven’t decided yet.
“I asked for her care plan and I asked who I can make a formal complaint to but they wouldn’t say.
“There was some blood on the roundabout which could have been a coincidence - I think she must have been making her way into town.
“She was covered in blood. The clothes she was wearing had a lot of blood on them.
“The hospital is going to do an x-ray on her rib and they said it's probably not broken but could be cracked.”
A spokesman for Essex Police said: “We were called to concerns for the welfare of a woman in Spital Road, Maldon at around 3.15am on November 25.
“The woman had an injury to her head and was left in the care of the ambulance service.”
Maldon Lodge Care Home has been contacted but declined to comment.
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