A WOMAN who suffered from chronic back pain died after taking an overdose of prescribed painkillers, an inquest has heard.

Pamela Mary Ralph, 55, was found unconscious in the kitchen of her home in New Road on September 25, 2017.

She was discovered by a delivery person and was pronounced dead at the scene.

An inquest at Basingstok e Magistrates Court on Wednesday, 22 November, heard how Miss Ralph’s health started to deteriorate in hear early 20s .

She was later diagnosed with irritable bowel syndrome, Crohn’s disease and chronic back pain. A statement from Miss Ralph’s sister Maureen Parker read to the court stated that Miss Ralph’s “poor health” and “breakdown of a long term relationship” had led to her becoming increasingly depressed.

In her statement, Ms Parker said: “In the last year she had become very ill and to use a stick to get about.

“As she got more and more ill she became more depressed.”

Ms Parker told the inquest that she was however “shocked and surprised” to hear about her sister’s death as they spoke on the phone regularly and there was no indication she was “looking for a way out”.

Police constable Michaela Gaimster, who was the on-duty police officer, told the court that Miss Ralph had left a number of letters in her house addressed to loved ones .

She said: “There was a letter informing whoever found her to inform her sister and another which told her friends to cancel her future appointments.”

PC Gaimster said she found empty packets of prescribed painkillers in Miss Ralph’s home.

The court heard how Miss Ralph was considered a moderate risk of self-harm by medical experts and had from August 2017 “felt depressed a lot of the time”

Recording a verdict of suicide from an overdose of combined prescribed painkillers, North East Hampshire coroner Andrew Bradley said: “She had a clear intention that she did not want to remain with us any longer.

“She was in constant pain and it appears that she had hit rock bottom, and that death was the only option left for her.

“This is a very sad matter and all the signs pointed that this was the only way out.”

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