A grandmother is bankrupt after withdrawing and spending her life savings after doctors misdiagnosed her as being dead in the next five years.
Jackie Dibb, 62 years of age, was effectively given a ‘death penalty’ by doctors in November 2016 who told her she was suffering from incurable dementia.
She was told to enjoy the remainder of her life after being diagnosed as suffering from frontal temporal dementia and she went on a spending spree.
Doctors then reviewed her portfolio a year later and realised she was just suffering from severe anxiety. But this was not before she and her husband Rob Dibb, 61 years of age had already spent their pension of £10,000.
They spent £4,000 on a wet room for their home, £1,500 on a holiday and £700 for a double-door American fridge.
Jackie even made her farewell’s to her 12-year-old granddaughter telling her, “I’ll still be here, but I’ll be like one of those zombies you see in films.”
After a scan at Hull Royal Infirmary revealed Jackie never had dementia at all.
Rob, of Hull, East Yorkshire, said: “We feel embarrassed, to be honest; we said goodbye to family, everything we feel crushed.
“At the moment, we are treading water with money we’re up to our noses anyway.
“We emptied our pensions and savings, we flew to Turkey on a big family holiday and bought things we didn’t need.
“Jackie wanted a big American-style fridge – so I bought her that and we spent shed loads of money, adapting the home, going on trips – you name it.
“People advised me to just give her whatever she wanted while she could still enjoy it – but she never even had dementia.”
Jackie had gone to see the doctors in 2016 when her behaviour started becoming erratic. The doctors initially thought she had had a stroke.
After an inaccurate CT scan made neurologists told her she had dementia which later was discovered to be ‘severe anxiety and depression’.
Mr. Dibb made a complaint to the NHS trust Hull and East Yorkshire Hospitals following the misdiagnosis and received a letter apologising for the added stress caused.
Rob, who retired early to become a full-time carer for wife Jackie, has vowed not to sue the NHS “because they’ve been too good to us over the years.”