Family beg for answers as woman left bed bound needing constant care after Covid jab

It’s hard to believe looking at these images that Joyce is only 62 years old but having spent almost six months in hospital, after she got her second Covid vaccination in December 2021, she is home but needs constant care from her family.

The mother of five and grandmother of 23 has gone from being a size 20 to a size 6 and her family say her life has been devastated.

Her daughter Crystal Bradley, who worked in the same hospital her mum was in, has demanded answers as to what has happened to her beloved mum.

Though there is no conclusive proof the Covid jab made her mum ill, the family believe Joyce’s health plummeted shortly after having it.

She says her mum had suffered from bipolar disorder and depression before going into hospital but that despite that she was taking medication and was living a full life.

“My mum got the Covid jab on December 11, 2021 and she fell ill about a week later and now we’ve effectively lost her,” says Crystal.

“As a family we are not anti-vax but we have no doubt her life has been completely devastated by the Covid jab.

“She was admitted to Craigavon Area Hospital on December 26 because she was acting very strangely, and she remained there for six full months.

“Before she went into hospital, she was independent and fun- loving. She could go to the shops to get her own prescriptions and groceries and she loved spending time with her grandkids.

“But she came out of that hospital a different woman. You can see the state she’s in. She’s faded away to nothing. She used to be a size 20 and now she’s a size six.

“She’s now non-verbal. She just lies in bed all the time. She’s not strong enough to do anything for herself and she’s now unable to communicate verbally with us.

“We now have to take it in turns to stay and look after her 24 hours a day. She’s not even a pensioner but look at the state of her. She looks more like she’s 90 than 62.

“She just lies in bed and repeatedly says the word ‘help’ over and over again. We’ve had to fix a quilt around her bed because she tries to bash her own head off the bed. It’s heartbreaking to see a woman who is still so young behaving in such a distressed way.

“We don’t know what happened to her in that hospital but we want answers and all we want is a proper diagnosis so we can know how to treat her.”

Crystal says her mum recently had a brain scan in Craigavon Hospital which showed she was suffering from a form of brain disease and they are still waiting for blood test results to be returned from Oxford to get a better idea of what is wrong with her.

Doctors want her to have another bigger scan in the Belfast City Hospital’s neurology department.

Crystal says her mum needs an ambulance to take her to that scan in Belfast because she lashes out and needs to be strapped down.

Crystal has raised concerns with the Southern Health and Social Care Trust about how she was treated in Craigavon Area Hospital for those six months.

“We are worried she wasn’t being cared for properly,” says Crystal. “It was hard to get to see her because at that time there was still strict Covid rules about visiting. I was working as a domestic in the hospital and so I could call and wash her.

“But we know for part of her time there she was taken to the mental unit at Bluestone where we could hardly get to see her and we know at one point they had her in a nappy, which we were disgusted with.”

Two weeks ago the family made the tear-jerking discovery of their mother trying to strangle herself.

“She had her hands around her own throat,” says Crystal. “She was trying to kill herself. We requested an ambulance to take her to hospital but it took 21 hours to come. She needed to be assessed by the Bluestone unit and she spent seven days in the hospital but then they let her out, still without a diagnosis of what’s wrong with her.

“She’s bed-ridden and rotting away. If she was dying of cancer she’d be treated better than this.

“We just want what’s best for her and we want answers about how she was treated in hospital during those six months.

“When people see her now they can’t believe it’s the same woman. She’s a shadow of her former self.

“And it is having a devastating impact on the whole family. I was working in the hospital as a domestic but I quit my job to look after my mum.”

Last night the Southern Health and Social Care Trust said “Whilst we are unable to comment on any individual patient, we can confirm that concerns were previously raised with the Trust regarding this patient. These concerns were fully investigated before a comprehensive response was sent back to the patient.”

The government has repeatedly stated that the benefits of vaccines outweigh the risks in the majority of people. But there have been rare cases where a Covid vaccination has caused fatalities.

The UK government says: “Vaccines are the best way to protect people from Covid-19 and have already saved tens of thousands of lives. As with all vaccines and medicines, the safety of Covid-19 vaccines is being continuously monitored.

“The benefits of the vaccines in preventing Covid-19 and serious complications associated with Covid-19 far outweigh any currently known side effects in the majority of patients.”