An 86-year-old Dublin woman, depressed by her deteriorating health, drank a lethal cocktail of cleaning fluids, Dublin City Coroner's court heard yesterday.
Family members said the woman, who lived alone in a senior citizens' flat complex in the city's north-west, was very independent. But they added her increasing infirmity had depressed her.
An inquest into her death heard that she drank the cleaning liquids from a glass on October 4th and died two days later in the Mater Hospital.
A resident warden in the complex said she was alerted by the woman on the day in question and found her in her bedroom.
The woman said she had taken poison and the warden had tried to give her first aid. The woman had mixed the cleaning fluids in a glass and then drank them.
The warden put the bottles she had found in the kitchen in a bag and gave them to ambulance staff.
The pathologist, Dr James Kirrane, said the woman was admitted to hospital on October 4th having ingested the cleaning fluids. Death was due to serious corrosion of the lining of the oesophagus, stomach and intestine. This was consistent with the ingestion of these fluids, he said.
No letter or note was found in the woman's flat and there was no evidence of third-party involvement, according to the investigating garda.
The coroner, Dr Brian Farrell, recorded a verdict of self-inflicted death. He had served several cases of suicide during the afternoon involving young people and he commented that self-inflicted death also occurred among the aged.
He sympathised with the woman's family.