https://www.independent.ie
7th February 2021
Loving couple die days apart in separate hospitals
"I can't lose both my parents," a woman told a hospital doctor in Dublin when informed her father was very ill with Covid-19.
Pamela Murray, whose mother was dying in another hospital across the city, pleaded: "You can't let anything happen to my dad."
Within a short time, she was attending their joint funeral. Two more victims of the pandemic.
Paddy and Elsie Somerville, of Walkinstown, Dublin, were admitted to different hospitals with Covid-19.
Although Elsie, who was 82, was first to be diagnosed and hospitalised, it was Paddy, 10 years younger, who died first.
After Elsie was admitted to Tallaght Hospital, Paddy said: “If anything happens to ger, I can’t live without her.”
Pamela and her husband, Damien, of Moy Glas Chase in Lucan, Co Dublin, believe Paddy and Elsie would still be alive if the Government had imposed a stricter regime.
They want tougher restrictions immediately.
“People are dying unnecessarily and they shouldn’t be. Because of the stupidity of some people, our elderly are being denied the right to live,” said mother-of-two Pamela.
Paddy and Elsie first met at a dance on their native Dublin. They married 47 years ago and a year later moved into their home in Limekiln Green in Walkinstown.
Pamela was their first child. A year later, they had twins Ashley and Ken.
Elsie, who baked wonderful apple tarts, worked in Jacob’s biscuit factory and later cycled to work as a cleaner.
Paddy drove lorries and later worked in a DHL warehouse. He loved driving the family for picnics in Glendalough.
Pamela said they were “very kind-hearted, helpful and generous parents” who had high standards when it came to caring for their loved ones.
The family were hit hard by grief 15 years ago when Ken died at the age of 30.
Ashley was unable to attend her parents’ funeral as she lives with her husband, Paul, and their two children in Perth, Australia, where a strict ban on international travel is in force.
Paddy and Elsie had been cocooning since the start of the pandemic. He had a caring role as his wife had Alzheimer’s. Pamela did their shopping and ran errands for them.
On December 8, Elsie was discharged from hospital with a HSE home-care package after receiving treatment for a urinary tract infection. She and Paddy spent Christmas Day with Pamela and her family in Lucan.
Later that month, Elsie became ill and was taken by ambulance to Tallaght Hospital, where she was diagnosed with Covid-19. Paddy went to stay with Pamela, and a few days later developed a high temperature.
“Dad had to leave our home on his own in the ambulance,” Pamela said. “He looked very frail and very nervous. I told him he would be OK and he would be out in a few days.
“He said, ‘I’ll go in the ambulance, I don’t want to let Elsie down’. I think he thought he was going to Tallaght Hospital, but we live in the catchment area for Connolly Hospital in Blanchardstown and he was taken there.
“I thought he had a kidney infection, but the next day we were told he had Covid. I was shocked.”
Paddy’s condition deteriorated as the days went by.
In Tallaght Hospital, Elsie’s treatment continued and, although Covid had eventually run its course, her lungs had been damaged and she was taken from the Covid ward and given a room. She was placed on a morphine pump and was not expected to recover, Pamela said.
As Paddy’s condition worsened in Blanchardstown, Pamela was allowed to visit him while wearing full PPE.
“When I walked into that room to see my dad, God could not have prepared me for what I saw,” she said.
“He was sitting on a chair and he was trembling and shaking and struggling to breathe and he looked grey in the face.
“I went over and I put a blanket around him. I had to hold him and rub him to stop him shaking. He was a bit disorientated.
“My sister was on my phone from Australis and she told dad to keep using his oxygen mask and he would be home in a week.
“He was shivering and he kept putting my hand up to his face and his hands were frozen. I said, ‘Dad, I love you, I love you, I’ll take you home next week’. He looked at me and said, ‘I love you, too’. On the way home, I got a sheer panic att-ack and felt my throat closing up.
She remembers telling a doctor he must keep her father alive as her mother was dying.
On January 17, Pamela received a phone call saying he had died. Pamela and Damien were admitted to his bedside. She said she felt the virus had “ravaged and strangled” her father.
In the days that followed, she visited her mother daily in Tallaght. On the first night after she was moved to a hospital room, Elsie smiled when Pamela told her Ashley was on the phone.
That was the last time she was conscious. She was peaceful in her final days. Pamela was glad to be able to hold her hand and sing to her. She died on January 24, a week after Paddy.
The family said Massey Brothers undertakers were “amazingly helpful” as they facilitated the planning of a double funeral as Elsie’s life ebbed away.
Both coffins were taken in the sae hearse to the Holy Spirit Parish Church in Greenhills, Dublin. The hearse stopped in front of the couple’s home, where neighbours came out to bid them farewell.
At the cremation service in Mount Jerome, recordings of Elsie’s favourite Patsy Cline song, I Fall Top Pieces, and We’ve Got Tonight by Kenny Rogers, a favourite of Paddy’s, were played.
A few days later, Pamela, Damien and their children, Leah and Ross, marked Elsie’s birthday by having dinner in the kitchen of the old family home. Afterwards, Pamela went upstairs to her parent’s room, climbed into bed and slept for two hours.
“My only comfort is that they are together now and that is what they would have wanted,” said Pamela. “But it’ heartbreaking for us because of the void that’s left behind.
“I can’t accept my dad is gone too because I needed him to get me through losing mam.”
