This is an inquest report taken from ‘Get Surrey’ this week –
it deals with a very sad death last September.
I find it disturbing on two levels – St. Peter’s Hospital has
been rightly criticised by the Coroner;
“Dr
Henderson said: “There’s a lack of care and I say that very carefully in a
coroner’s court because it’s very significant.”
Unfortunately because the Coroner didn’t hear evidence of any
particular reason for the little girl’s death, she found an “Open Verdict”.
This is a legal judgement which is just saying that there isn't enough evidence to make a finding.
Unfortunately it lets the Hospital off the Hook.
We can come to our own conclusions on how
advisable it is to send a baby home with the problems she had.
Aside from all the music, the fun and all the rest of the nonsense on my Blog (don't think I'm making any apologies for that) this story is the real reason I did this last year.
From a very personal note, I was admitted to St. Peter’s when
I returned there with my misdiagnosed broken ankle on 3rd September
last year and little Mia would have been born the next morning in the same
building as me. That day, when I was waking up from my first operation I was on
the floor above hers.
Nine-day-old Mia Ridge had "lack of
care" before her death, coroner says
Get Surrey
Kevin Hurley
"Questions
need to be answered" by hospital staff following the death of a
nine-day-old baby, a coroner has said.
Dr Karen
Henderson made the comments at an inquest held last Friday (November 29) into
the death of Mia Ridge in September 2012.
Woking
Coroner’s Court heard that baby Mia was born on September 4 last year by
caesarian section at St Peter’s Hospital, Chertsey, and taken to an emergency
unit for a short period of time, due to a "husky tone to her
breathing".
Her family
was allowed to take her home to Weybridge two days later.
Father
James Ridge told the inquest that Mia’s feeding was slow and she would doze off
while being fed. During a second visit by a midwife on September 11, the family
was advised to take Mia back to St Peter’s as she had lost weight.
The baby
lost consciousness while feeding in hospital and could not be resuscitated. She
died on September 13.
Jane Urben,
interim head of midwifery at Ashford and St Peter’s Hospitals NHS Foundation
Trust, was not at the trust at the time but helped to put together a serious
incident report following Mia’s death, which was not passed on to the family
until the inquest.
She agreed
with the coroner that Mia did not "appear to be fit enough to go
home" when she was discharged after two days.
Dr
Henderson said: “There’s a lack of care and I say that very carefully in a
coroner’s court because it’s very significant.”
Dr Samantha
Levine, a specialist in perinatal and paediatric pathology, conducted the
post-mortem examination and could not find a cause of death despite testing for
underlying problems such as infections, metabolic disorders and genetic
abnormalities.
Summing up,
Dr Henderson said Mia had been "quite unwell" until her hospital
discharge, with an increased respiratory rate and was "blue at
times".
“We know
Mia was discharged from hospital and several days later readmitted. One did
follow the other but it’s not possible, within the powers I have as coroner, to
have a causal connection between them.
“I can’t
say that if she stayed in hospital and was managed there, that her death would
have been prevented. There’s insufficient evidence for me to be able to make
that causal connection. Nevertheless I fully understand that questions need to
be answered.”
Help me sort out St Peters
Neil Harris
(a don’t stop till you drop production)
No comments:
Post a Comment