Two women are devastated their fathers are dying from infections related to horrible bedsores acquired in the same hospital.

And they say it’s even more tragic because they feel the bedsores were totally preventable.

Linda Moss’s 77-year-old father Bob Wilson is transferring at any moment now from a regular hospital bed into palliative care after he acquired a festering deep bedsore wound while at Joseph Brant Hospital in Burlington.

Laura Birkett’s father, 82, is heading to the Carpenter Hospice in Burlington soon to die after he, too, developed a severe bedsore while at Jo Brant.

Moss publicized her father’s plight in the media last week. Birkett filed a complaint with the Burlington hospital this past weekend.

Jo Brant CEO Eric Vandewall posted a letter on the hospital’s website apologizing for what happened and said the hospital will start reporting its performance on treating bedsores in June to improve awareness and care.

Moss said Jo Brant has already acknowledged “The wound care specialist or consultant at the hospital recommended a certain treatment and it wasn’t used. I don’t know why, but it was a cheaper (treatment) that they used. We were told that by the executives at Jo Brant.”

The hospital said on its website it is reviewing Wilson’s care.

Jo Brant did not respond to questions but referred the Spectator to a statement and the open letter from Vandewall on its website.

The statement said it is taking immediate action to understand and address the matter. It also states wound care is a challenge for hospitals and other care settings, especially for those immobile for extended periods.

Moss and her two sisters were often at Wilson’s bedside after their father suffered a brain injury from a fall down the stairs at his Burlington home in November.

He was at Jo Brant for care while awaiting surgery in Hamilton. And since he was unable to speak, his daughters had no idea Wilson had a huge bedsore.

It wasn’t until he was transferred to Hamilton General on April 21 for brain surgery that the General, to the utter shock of the daughters, discovered the massive bedsore — a large open wound the size of a football.

The General’s doctors said they could no longer do the brain surgery because of it. The bedsore was diseased so badly, the infection had burrowed into his bones and had entered his bloodstream, making him septic, says Moss. And no antibiotic could treat the gaping hole in their father’s lower back.

“When they (Hamilton General staff) showed us a picture, our mouths dropped to the floor,” she said. “It’s too far gone. His whole backside is blown out.”

Moss says Jo Brant staff had mentioned once that her dad had a small bedsore, and although red and irritated, they were taking care of it — and that he was on a special bed for minimizing bed sores and he would be fine.

How the wound got from a small bedsore to a gaping black hole the daughters say is killing their father — and that they didn’t know anything about it — is unfathomable, says Moss.

“How did someone cover that up and not say something to us, or to the doctors, or to Hamilton General, not even in the (hospital) transfer papers?” says Moss. “How could anyone put a bandage on it and walk away?”

Moss says the bedsore, which she describes as “black, dead, rotted skin” wasn’t documented in Wilson’s Jo Brant hospital record. “Even his own doctor didn’t know he had a bedsore . . . he wasn’t even aware of how bad it was.”

Moss says the biggest heartbreak of all is that she and her sisters were very involved in her dad’s care and yet didn’t know anything about the bedsore.

“If it can happen to us, it can happen to anyone,” Moss says.

“My father is failing because of this wound. It went down to the bone and is basically taking his life. How that happened, I don’t know. His whole backside was black.

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“Six months ago, he was dancing at a birthday party. He was active.”

Now, Moss and her sisters want the public to know bedsores can kill, and to be vigilant about them when advocating for loved ones.

“It calms us a bit, knowing that we’re making a difference,” says Moss, adding “I don’t want this to happen to someone else.”

And she wants people to see a picture of it to realize how horrible it is.

“Sometimes, a picture like that really brings the devastation home,” Moss says. “It’s reality, and when people see something that bad, they’ll do something about it.”

Laura Birkett says her father had been undergoing bone cancer treatments and had “a good year left to live” before the bedsore happened. She does not want his name used.

“My dad is dying of a bedsore even though he was going through cancer treatments for a year-and-a-half,” Birkett says.

When in Jo Brant’s rehab unit as part of his cancer treatment, Birkett says she was told her father had a bedsore. She kept asking about it “but nobody could describe it or tell me about it,” she says.

When she insisted she needed to know about it before taking him home, staff told her it was the size of a toonie and was nothing to worry about.

But at home after her father was discharged, the wound nurse who came to treat it was shocked at the massive open wound and said she couldn’t deal with it, Birkett says.

So Birkett’s dad ended up at the ER, just four days after having been discharged.

“When I brought him back to the hospital, they accused us (of not taking care of him). They said he left with a small wound.”

“It had to have been to the bone when he left hospital . . . but they were in such a hurry to get him out of rehab, they said he had a superficial bedsore.”

Back in hospital with the bedsore, Birkett’s father had two blood transfusions to deal with the bedsore infection, but they didn’t work. So his oncologist stopped all treatments that were supposed to give him another year.