Bury woman died after complications linked to her low weight

Liza-Jayne Hall died aged 32 on December 19, 2022, at her home in Myrtle Gardens in Bury, where she lived with her mum.

Rochdale Coroners' Court heard that at the time of her death she was single and unemployed.

Her mum Paula Hall said Liza-Jayne was raised in the Bury and Ramsbottom areas and was the only child of hers and her dad Gordon's, who died around 10 years ago.

Paula said: “She had her own opinions and was opinionated in the things she believed in, but she was friendly to others.”

However, since her dad died, she became more reclusive and did not go out as much.

Paula added: “I hope (that) the short life she had, she did enjoy (it).”

The court heard that when Liza-Jayne was born she was a very low birth weight, which continued throughout her life.

She was described as a poor eater and never liked sweet foods like cakes or puddings.

Paula said Liza-Jayne would eat a lot of junk food and fast food, never ate breakfast and would only have a little bit of lunch like soup.

She would then have a main meal at dinner, which would either be what Paula made or a takeaway from online delivery platform JustEat.

After attending college, she never worked and kept receiving sick notes for depression, which is thought to have developed after her dad died.

But Paula said her daughter never spoke about feeling depressed.

In October 2022, Paula and Liza-Jayne went to London for a weekend and Liza-Jayne became ill on the journey down and felt weak, and it was thought that she had caught the flu.

However, it was discovered that she had gastroenteritis and was taken to A&E when they came back home.

Between October and December 2022, she seemed back to her normal self and there were no concerns.

In December, Paula and Liza-Jayne went to Ramsbottom to see some friends but both caught bad colds after waiting for a bus for a long time in the freezing cold.

On December 18 that year, Liza-Jayne went to hospital as she had deteriorated after this illness and she was diagnosed with a chest infection and given antibiotics.

That evening she came home and lay down on the sofa and Paula decided her daughter needed to go back to hospital so she dialled 999 at around 1.15am on December 19.

The ambulance service said there was a six-hour wait so Paula told Liza-Jayne that she would call a taxi. But Liza-Jayne said she did not have the strength to get into a taxi and she would sleep on the sofa until morning.

Paula then went upstairs to lie on the bed as she was still too ill, and when she came back downstairs in the morning at around 7am, Liza-Jayne had died.

Nurse practitioner Richard Watkins dealt with Liza-Jayne on December 18 in hospital and said that at 3.52pm she had a very high temperature, high blood pressure and was breathing rapidly.

It was noted that she appeared very thin but this was how she was normally and there was nothing that suggested she warranted a hospital admission, so she was discharged with antibiotics.

Dr Matthew Cahill, a consultant psychiatrist for eating disorders, said that he did not think Liza-Jayne had anorexia as she did not actively avoid eating food and her low weight was likely to be genetic.

However, he said he was not convinced a robust assessment of her health has been carried out.

Dr Abdul Ganjifrokwala carried out a postmortem investigation on December 22, 2022 and recorded Liza-Jayne’s cause of death as malnutrition. He said that Liza-Jayne weighed just 33.6kg (5st 4lbs).

Senior coroner Joanne Kearsley said that on the balance of probabilities, due to Liza-Jayne having a long history of having a "severely low weight", the medical cause of death was ruled as likely to be complications of chronic low weight.

The death was also recorded as an acute sudden event of natural causes.

She expressed her condolences to the family.