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The woman who invited entertainer Michael Crawford to Sheppey died of sepsis after waiting more than two years for an operation, a coroner heard this week.
Mother-of-two Ann Everett managed the Crawford Centre in Edenbridge Drive, Sheerness, and arranged for the Phantom of the Opera and Some Mothers Do ‘Ave ‘Em star, who grew up on the Island, to open the centre in November 2001.
But Mrs Everett, who was born with spina bifida, was later let down by the NHS when she woke up at her home in Drake Avenue to discover a gaping wound on her hip had burst.
The coroner heard a succession of doctors and consultants delayed an operation for more than two years.
Her daughter Kathryn Everett told the Times Guardian: “I firmly believe my mother was not only a victim of incompetence and negligence but was also discriminated against because of her disability.
“Because she did not have the use of her legs, many medics treated her as if she had lost the use of her brain, too.
“The fact she had virtually no feeling below her waist meant she felt little pain. Any other ‘able-bodied’ person with such a massive wound would have been in utter agony and so would have been treated immediately.”
Mrs Everett died on July 5 at Medway Maritime Hospital after being admitted with sepsis. She was 77.
Miss Everett added: “She enjoyed an amazingly active life as a wheelchair-user yet this intelligent, active woman was forced to spend the final two years and three months of her life lying in bed, on the orders of medics, waiting for an operation that never happened.
“To make matters worse, a catheter fitted to avoid infection leaked, posing a clear risk of infection when combined with a huge wound which went through to the bone.
“She spent the final days on a geriatric ward. It was a battle to even get her admitted, despite two 999 calls made by district nurses who attended daily to dress her wound.
"The first time an ambulance was called, she was turned away from A&E by staff who said she was not ill enough.”
An inquest was to have been held on Monday in Maidstone but assistant coroner Sonia Hayes adjourned the hearing until January for Medway Foundation Trust to provide more documentation and for more witnesses to be called.
Mrs Everett, a member of the Island's Big Fish Arts group, was one of the oldest people in Britain with spina bifida. After retiring, she appeared on BBC Radio 4’s Brain of Britain.
She was a member of the Big Fish Arts group and the Kent Association for Spina Bifida and Hydrocephalus.
