Addie Parker was a happy 4-year-old who appeared to have the flu. But within hours she was in a coma.
Tragically, her parents weren't familiar with the signs of type 1 diabetes -- extreme fatigue, thirst and sweet-smelling breath, among others -- in time to save their little girl. Soon after she was diagnosed, Addie's brain haemorrhaged. She died six days later, about a month shy of her fifth birthday.
Experts say a lack of awareness of the signs of type 1 diabetes is all too common. Just this month, a Wisconsin toddler died, apparently because of undiagnosed type 1 diabetes.
"Addie had flu symptoms," recalled her mother, Micki Parker, who works in the operating room at a nearby hospital but was unfamiliar with type 1 diabetes.
"By the next morning, she was throwing up every hour," Parker said. Addie didn't have a fever, but later that day, she couldn't get up from the bathroom floor because she was so dizzy.
Eventually, the Parkers learned that Addie's blood sugar level was 543 milligrams per decilitre (mg/dL) -- more than four times higher than normal, according to the American Diabetes Association.
Most people have heard of type 2 diabetes, but type 1 diabetes is far less common. It can strike at any age -- even though it used to be known as juvenile diabetes -- and it always requires treatment with injected insulin or insulin delivered through a pump. People with type 1 diabetes don't produce insulin, a hormone needed to convert the food you eat into fuel for the body. Without insulin, glucose (blood sugar) rises to unhealthy levels.
Untreated, type 1 diabetes causes serious complications and even death. But it's often mistaken for other illnesses -- even by doctors.
"There's an under-awareness of type 1 diabetes among the public, and in the healthcare system," said Dr Richard Insel, chief scientific officer for JDRF (formerly the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation). "Missed diagnoses even occur in emergency rooms; people don't always think of it."
Every day, about 80 Americans are diagnosed with type 1 diabetes, and the total number rose 23% between 2000 and 2009 in children under 20. Currently, about 3 million Americans -- most of them adults -- are living with type 1 diabetes, according to the JDRF.
Diabetic ketoacidosis
One of them is 20-year-old Amanda Di Lella, who was 13 when she knew something was seriously wrong.
"I was losing weight, but I was always hungry. I was always tired. My symptoms weren't extreme at first, but they quickly got worse," she said. "I went from being tired to not being able to get out of bed, from being thirsty to drinking 10 bottles of water in the middle of the night. I had lost 15 pounds, and only weighed 75 pounds when I begged my mother to take me to the doctor."
Her paediatrician told her mother that Di Lella probably had an eating disorder and he prescribed protein shakes.
Within a few days Di Lella wasn't waking up. Her mother took her to the hospital, at about the same time the doctor got blood work back showing that she had type 1 diabetes.
Her blood sugar level was over 400, and she was in diabetic ketoacidosis, or DKA. When your body doesn't get the glucose it needs for fuel (and when there's no insulin, glucose doesn't get into the body's cells), it burns fats for energy. This produces an acidic substance called ketones, which can build up in the blood, causing DKA.
"Once you're in DKA, you're set up for some major complications, and approximately 30% of people diagnosed with type 1 diabetes still present with DKA," Insel said.
After a week in the intensive care unit, Di Lella recovered. Her doctor apologised for the error and said he had never had a case of type 1 diabetes, so it wasn't something he normally looked for.
Insel said it's important to compare a child's changes in behaviour to the other children in the family. Is the child drinking excessively compared to a sibling? Is a child who has mastered nighttime bladder control suddenly wetting the bed again?
The good news is that it's easy to test for type 1 diabetes. A urine test can detect whether there's sugar in the blood. If that test is positive, then a simple test drawing a drop of blood from the fingertip can confirm whether you have diabetes.
Di Lella, now a student at the University of Florida, said she would advise others to "not ignore symptoms that seem so basic. Even small symptoms can be a sign of something much bigger".
Parker said she wants other parents to know that a child with type 1 diabetes "doesn't necessarily look sick. Trust your gut instinct, and push to have your child tested".
The signs and symptoms of type 1 diabetes that everyone should know include:
- Increased thirst
- Frequent urination
- Wetting the bed in a child who has previously had good nighttime bladder control
- Unintended weight loss
- Extreme fatigue
- Sudden changes in vision
- Unusual irritability
- Increased appetite
- A fruity odour on the breath
- Heavy or laboured breathing
This article is courtesy of health24.
A liver transplant patient was sewn up with an A4-sized piece of surgical equipment left inside him, after a series of medical blunders.
Michael O'Sullivan, 49, received a new liver at Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge, but was sent home with a silicone mat still inside him.
It was only discovered after Mr O'Sullivan complained of suffering from a lot of pain following surgery. Doctors performed a CT scan three weeks later and decided to operate after spotting something unusual. Mr O'Sullivan was shocked to be told they had discovered the equipment inside him following the operation.
He has now won £7,000 in compensation from the Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.
The award comes after Addenbrooke’s was heavily criticised by health watchdog Monitor, which cited a series of so-called ‘never events’ - incidents that simply shouldn't happen - as one of its major failings.
Personal injury lawyers Slater and Gordon said the ordeal had been 'incredibly stressful' for their London-based client and could have put his health at risk.
Mr O'Sullivan had a lapromat - a fish-shaped piece of silicon - inserted during surgery just before closure of the abdominal wall and designed to prevent inadvertant puncture of the bowel.
The lapromat acts as a kind of protective shield and should be removed before surgery is completed.
Paul Sankey, Principal Lawyer at Slater and Gordon, told Mail Online: 'The hospital's own investigation says that the cause of the incident was the failure correctly to record that an item from the instrument set was in use, not recognising that it had not been removed and failure correctly to complete the count at the end of the procedure.
'The normal rule is - count in, count out. The root cause was said to be the breakdown of routine checking procedures. In other words this was not, like most surgical mistakes, an error of judgment in the exercise of a difficult skill but really basic carelessness.
'I deal with medical negligence claims day in day out. In my experience mistakes quite as blatant as this are extremely rare.'
Rebecca Brown, from the same firm, added: 'When we go to hospital for surgery, we rightly expect the highest standards of healthcare and professionalism. These standards were not upheld when Michael had his liver transplant at Addenbrooke’s.
'The award of compensation is a relief for someone whose health could have been endangered by this carelessness.
'We hope that the resolution of this case, as well of those of others who have brought actions against Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, will serve to protect patients in the future.'
A spokesman for Addenbrooke’s said: 'We deeply regret this incident and have apologised to the patient.'
This article is courtesy of the Daily Mail.
Jamie Merrett was left a tetraplegic after a car accident in 2002. Since then, he has been on life support at home and required constant care. He was able to use a wheelchair and talk and his intellect remained unaffected.
In 2009, registered nurse Violetta Aylward was providing care for Jamie. After becoming suspicious about the level of care he was receiving, Jamie emailed health officials about his concerns. When they went unanswered, he secretly had a video tape set up in his room. One day, Ms Aylward accidently turned Jamie’s ventilator off, depriving him of oxygen for the twenty one minutes until the Paramedics restarted it.
Jamie’s sister Karren Reynolds said that the brain damage he sustained was catastrophic. Though he had the mental capacity of an adult before the incident, Jamie now behaves as a child.
His life is completely changed. He doesn't have a life now," she said. "He has an existence but it's nowhere near what it was before. He is very brain damaged compared to what he was before. He was a highly intelligent man and you could have long in-depth conversations with him and now it tends to be more simplistic."
Ms Reynolds is now pursuing a legal claim of negligence and a compensation package on behalf of her brother.
A report leaked to a television programme indicated that the nursing agency who employed Ms Aylward did not supply her with proper ventilator training. Because of this, she did not know how to properly operate the machine and turned it off by accident.
Ms Aylward is now set to appear before the Nursing and Midwifery Council to face multiple charges of negligence.
The NHS Wiltshire Primary Care Trust released the following statement: "We have put in place a series of actions to ensure that such an event will not occur again either for this patient or others."
If you or anyone you know has suffered from medical negligence you can make a claim for compensation today by completing the quick Start a Claim form on the TRUE Solicitors website.
A review of two NHS hospital trusts in Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire has got under way, with patients complaining services are being "hammered".
The review, at Sherwood Forest Hospitals Trust and United Lincolnshire Hospitals Trust, will investigate standards of care.
Both trusts have experienced higher than expected mortality rates.
Public meetings are being held to gauge the views of patients.
'Very intense process'
In Lincolnshire, the meetings were held at the White Hart in Boston and the White Hart in Lincoln.
The review panel said they would specifically be examining elderly care, stroke patient treatment, respiratory, diabetes and obstetrics care and the high number of deaths attributed to perinatal conditions.
There are also concerns around MRSA infection rates and clinical negligence payouts.
The panel is conducting inspection tours of Lincoln County Hospital and Grantham Hospital.
Ruth May, review panel chair and regional chief nurse, said: "I'm going to be testing issues around staffing, how patients are cared for.
"It's a very, very intense process. I know that following the two visits we have done, people have taken some immediate actions."
'Lucky to be alive'
In Nottinghamshire, where listening events were held at Newark Town Hall and Kings Mill Hospital, patients said services had been downgraded and people were travelling further for care.
John Roberts, from Balderton, said the health service was "not fit for purpose".
He said his wife Margaret was "lucky to be alive" after having waited more than an hour for an ambulance to arrive following a brain haemorrhage.
"Newark should have an emergency service," he said. "It's quite a big place and when you look at other towns and villages, Newark really is being hammered."
The hospital's emergency department was turned into a minor injuries facility in 2011.
However, the clinical lead of the Newark NHS Clinical Commissioning Group, Dr Mark Jefford, said death rates had not gone up because people were travelling to other hospitals.
"We have no evidence of that," he said. "We know current medical evidence is if you are acutely unwell, particularly with either a stroke or a heart attack, you have the best outcomes by going to the biggest centres."
He added he welcomed the review and said: "I absolutely appreciate and understand the people of Newark are very concerned about ambulance transfer times.
"We are working very hard with East Midlands Ambulance Service to try to make sure we can improve those services."
The panel is expected to report back later in the year.
From the Stafford Hospital inquiry:
Which hospitals are being investigated?
In Nottinghamshire,
Sherwood Forest Trust, which includes Kings Mill Hospital in
Sutton-in-Ashfield, and Newark Hospital is being investigated.
United Lincolnshire Hospitals NHS Trust, which includes Lincoln County
Hospital and Grantham Hospital is also the subject of a review
Why are these investigations taking place?
The investigation comes in the wake of the scandal at Stafford
Hospital. The trusts are two of 14 that are being investigated, in a
review led by NHS medical director Sir Bruce Keogh. Death rates at both
trusts are higher than expected
This article is courtesy of BBC News.
NHS Health Scotland has spent over seventy million pounds settling pregnancy negligence claims in the last three years. Unless something is done, that number will surely rise as another ninety claims are still pending.
Concerned health officials warn that the costs will trickle down and effect care at the patient level. That, in turn, could snowball into even more negligence compensation claims in the long run.
While the Scottish government states that the claims are used as learning experiences, disciplinary action is almost never taken even in cases with large compensation payouts.
Health spokesman Jackson Carlaw had this to say about the situation: "The problem we have is compensation seems to increase without direct accountability; no one is ever disciplined for negligence. This easy rush to compensation will, in the medium term, lead to higher insurance health premiums which NHS health boards will only be able to meet at the expense of front line services."
Genuine claims almost always result in a significant compensation pay out.
Stillbirths and deaths are extremely costly, and physical or mental damage can see the NHS paying for lifetime care of the victim.
Mr Carlaw stresses that too often compensation is used as a way to sweep clinical negligence under the rug. “To reduce the need for claims those responsible should be held to account, lessons learned and procedures changed to prevent repeat incidents," he said.
The NHS denies that compensation is used as a cover for negligence and that hospital boards take safety very seriously.
The Scottish government is implementing a cutting edge safety program in response to the growing claims. It is currently working a program specifically designed for pregnancy and maternity wards. Rough estimates indicate that those changes in safety procedures could cut the cost of litigation and compensation in the future.
Legal advisers to half of Britain's doctors have calculated that their compensation payouts to patients for medical negligence have risen more than 2,000-fold in 50 years.
The Medical Defence Union said last night that the annual bill went up from £34,472 in 1952 to nearly £78m in 2000, the last year for which figures were available.
In the year the Queen ascended the throne, the highest single sum the MDU paid out was £12,000 to a draughtsman for the loss of his left leg above the knee. In comparison, it paid nearly £4m last year to a child severely brain damaged after a delayed diagnosis of dehydration, and nearly £3m to a child with cerebral palsy in 1998.
Examples of the growth in Britain's compensation culture would have been more startling were it not for the introduction in 1990 of state-funded indemnity to cover doctors's work in NHS hospitals and community care. The MDU still covers GPs' and doctors' work in the private sector, and supports doctors facing disciplinary investigations.
Karen Dalby, the clinical risk manager at the MDU who conducted the analysis, said attitudes towards doctors had changed."Throughout the first half of the 20th century the number of claims received by the MDU could be counted in tens. Now it is many thousands and would be much higher if the MDU was still handling medical negligence claims in the NHS. In 1952, people just did not question that doctors were doing their best and it was exceptionally rare for a patient to complain, let alone sue."
Legal aid and the arrival of no-win, no-fee lawyers, and the way courts calculated costs of future care and awards for pain and suffering, had also added to the size of awards.
But many of the underlying themes behind claims remained unchanged. "Communication problems, delays in or missed diagnoses, and failure to warn of the risks of treatment feature in claims in 1952, just as they do today," said Dr Dalby.
This article is courtesy of theguardian.
The period of time when a woman is pregnant up until the point that she gives birth, whilst mixed with other feelings, is one of the most daunting and stressful times of a woman’s life. All she is hoping for is a healthy happy baby and a delivery that is smooth as possible. Sometimes during the pregnancy things can go wrong, which can have an effect on the health of the baby.
Cerebral palsy is one of those consequences when things don’t go as expected. The condition can occur through unavoidable circumstances, but it can also occur as a result of negligence on the part of the medical professional that assisted in delivering the baby. If there is support and evidence to prove that medical negligence caused the onset of cerebral palsy, then you could be eligible to claim compensation.
What is cerebral palsy?
Cerebral palsy is a fairly complex medical condition that occurs during pregnancy or labour. To explain it as simply as possible, cerebral palsy is a physical condition whereby injury to the brain (the cerebrum) affects movement.
There are different degrees of the condition, with some barely noticing any signs of it whilst others need constant care and attention. The condition doesn’t get worse but it does often become more noticeable as the child gets older, as their level of movement becomes more noticeable.
One of the most common causes of the condition is a lack of oxygen to the brain for a period of time, and whilst there are numerous potential causes for this, the one connected to medical negligence is mismanagement during the birth of the child. This could be a direct responsibility of the midwife or doctor who delivered the baby and the best course of action to find out whether you are eligible to make a claim is to get into contact with a personal injury solicitor.
Medical negligence, which is now becoming known as “clinical negligence” here in the UK, is the suffering of an injury of some kind that was caused as a result of negligent care or treatment by a medical professional.
You only have a case to make a claim if there is a casual connection and the injury could have been avoided. There are many factors involved when it comes to taking legal action and no case is the same. Contacting a personal injury solicitor will be necessary for advice that is specific to your case.
Examples of claims
- Medical negligence claims can cover a whole variety of areas but examples include:
- Misdiagnosis or failure to make a diagnosis at all
- Prescribing the incorrect medication
- Making a mistake during surgery or another medical procedure
- A lack of warning regarding risks of a treatment
- Failure to gain the patients consent before beginning a treatment
Typical first contact with a solicitor
If you believe that you have grounds to claim for compensation, then the first form of action that you need to take is to find a firm of UK Personal Injury Solicitors. Many of the more reputable firms will be willing to provide a free consultation, of which is well worth taking advantage. Use the opportunity to openly discuss your case revealing the details of your claim and ask for advice regarding what step you should take next.
Your solicitor should tell you honestly whether or not your case is worth pursuing and the kind of compensation to which you may be entitled. They should also spell it out very clearly to you that the process could be lengthy, expensive and physically and mentally draining. Medical negligence cases are normally very complex, so be prepared for what you are about to take-on.
The NHS is something that many of us take for granted in the UK, and whilst it might not be perfect, our health service is not something that we should hold our noses up at.
Having said that, when we go into hospital or visit our GP, we are to an extent putting our lives in the hands of these medical professionals and entrusting them with it. With that comes a responsibility on their part, to take care of us to the best of their ability and act professionally at all times.
On most occasions this is exactly what happens, but every now and then mistakes are made that can lead to more harm than good. If a doctor makes a mistake and injury is considered to be a direct result of that, then it is very possible that you have suffered from NHS negligence and, as a result, hold ground to file for compensation.
Typical claims
Claims against the NHS are incredibly varied and can include injury to babies, misdiagnosis of a condition, surgical errors, dental injuries and administration of the wrong treatment to name just a few. There are a great many more examples of cases that are made claiming NHS negligence and those that can provide adequate evidence to support their claim, receive an appropriate amount in compensation.
The exact figure will be negotiated between your own personal injury solicitor and that of the NHS, and most of the time both parties agree to settle out of court. This saves both time and money and everyone wants the process over with as fast as possible. The amount you get in compensation will depend on the extent of your suffering, physically and psychology, as well as your financial loss as a result of your injury.
More and more people are now opting to have some form of cosmetic surgery done, and what was at one point considered to be radical is now considered to be a fairly common and standard procedure.
There are loads of different types of cosmetic surgery and whilst it is true that with the developments and advancements in the technology that is being used it is becoming safer, there is still always a risk when you undergo surgery of any kind. As well as the risks that are health related and come naturally, there is always the constant danger of human error or to put it into legal terms, surgical negligence.
What is surgical negligence?
Surgical negligence is when the person performing the procedure makes a mistake that shouldn’t have been made by a competent doctor. This could result in various kinds of damage, from pain all the way to death. It can also include things such as equipment being left inside the body whilst you are undergoing surgery to further injury to other parts of the body. If you or someone you know has had cosmetic surgery that has gone wrong due to avoidable complications, then it should be considered making a claim for compensation.
This is not something that you want to jump into, as the process can be long and gruelling, especially with more complex cases. A good personal injury solicitor can certainly help and if you are wondering about the next step to take, it could be worth getting hold of one.
Personal injury firms often provide free no obligation consultations, so you can at least find out where you stand in terms of the law and whether you have enough evidence for your case to be considered a strong one that is worth pursuing.
Dentists are doctors in their own right and, as just any other medical professional; they have a duty and responsibility to take care of each of their patients to the best of their ability. By acting negligently, they fail to give the due care and attention that is necessary in such as serious profession. This can lead to making mistakes, which can cause further injury or suffering to their patient.
When you go in to the dental clinic for a procedure of any kind, you expect to leave with the problem having been appropriately treated putting you on the path to recovery. However in some cases this is not what happens and due to dental negligence the patient ends up feeling worse or with a completely new issue than when they initially visited the dentist. If this has happened to you or one of your family members, then you may want to know what action is required on your behalf.
The first step
The first step is to carry out some research on the procedure that you went to have done. You need to know exactly what is expected of the health care providers in order to be sure that they did something wrong. If you feel you have grounds for complaint and have suffered as a result of their actions in a significant way, then you need to find yourself a local firm of personal injury solicitors.
Initially they can offer you some free legal advice and either confirm or deny whether your suspicions of negligence are legitimate. They can also advice you on the likely compensation you will receive if you were to win the case. From here you need to decide whether it is something worth pursuing. You will not be obligated to take any further action and the next step will be completely up to your discretion.
More than 100,000 people have been injured in accidents in Scotland’s NHS hospitals over the past four years, new figures have revealed.
A catalogue of incidents ranging from minor bumps and bruises to broken limbs, amputations and even deaths have been recorded since 2009. Electric shocks, burns, the inhalation of toxic fumes and injuries from “fixtures and fittings collapsing” are also among those seen on wards in Scotland.
An average of 64 people every day have been hurt, the majority of them patients, although staff, student nurses and visitors have also been involved in hospital accidents.
Margaret Watt, chair of the Scotland Patients Association, yesterday said she was “alarmed” by the total and called for new signage on wards to warn of the potential dangers. She said: “You go into hospital to get better, not get worse as a result of a secondary injury.
“Hospitals should also follow the example of building sites and display how many days have passed since the last accident on-site. In addition, I really don’t think there is enough information on our wards about the potential hazards we face, whether it’s a door that can jam your finger or a steep set of stairs.”
The figures, obtained from Scotland’s 14 health boards under freedom of information laws, show more than 103,000 people have sustained injuries since 2009. They include slips, trips and falls, collisions with trollies, masonry falling down, contact with chemicals and violence. NHS Lothian recorded the highest number of accidents, with 33,967 people injured, two-thirds of them patients and 247 of them hospital visitors.
Cuts, bruises and strains were the most common, although officials also noted instances of patients being burned, scratched by needles or ingesting toxic materials. At least 24 people suffered the effects of an electric shock, dozens were bitten by fellow patients and some required an amputation as a result of a hospital accident. The Lothian figures also show that 3,695 people were hurt at the Royal Hospital for Sick Children in Edinburgh, the majority of them patients.
NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde had the second highest total with 30,262 injuries since 2009, the majority of them, like Lothian, being minor bruises, cuts or scratches. Almost 1,000 people suffered injuries from needles and ten patients required an amputation.
NHS Grampian was third with 11,340 injuries since 2009, followed by Forth Valley with 9,330. NHS Orkney reported only 12 people being hurt inside its hospitals.
In Lanarkshire, there were 405 instances of an injury caused by violence, while accidents involving being “struck by something (eg furniture, fittings)” accounted for the majority of injuries in Highland, where 17 people have also been “trapped under something collapsing”.
None of the health boards give any details about the incidents except NHS Western Isles, which lists every injury including fractured thumbs, ligament damage, sore shoulders and scalds. The NHS in Scotland pays out millions of pounds annually in compensation as a result of medical negligence, with the number of claims rising year on year. NHS mistakes have cost the taxpayer £213 million since 2006. However, it is not known how much extra is being drained from the health service by accidents.
Opposition MSPs yesterday demanded immediate action by health secretary Alex Neil to reduce accidents in hospitals. Dr Nanette Milne, Scottish Conservative public health spokeswoman, said: “Whilst there will always be accidents in a busy medical environment, the health service has a duty to minimise the number of incidents on its sites.”
Officials at NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde – Scotland’s largest health board with 1.2 million patients treated each year – said staff were encouraged to report incidents.
Defending its figures, a spokesman for NHS Lothian said the health board treated 1.1 million patients a year and employed 24,000 people.
This article is courtesy of the Scotsman.com.
Organisations that provide services to the public must ensure that their procedures are thorough and safe. If they can’t fulfil this basic requirement, they may face legal action from those who suffer due to their negligence. Often, patients undergoing treatment at medical facilities are known to suffer due to negligence. They can file claims against these organizations under medical negligence.
Medical negligence is considered a severe crime. While not all cases are considered serious, a medical facility could still end up paying large sums of money in compensation. This is usually because of how seriously authorities regard negligence. The bottom line is that every tiny bit of malpractice is considered negligence, even though it may not be anywhere near to threatening a patient’s life.
Compensation for Medical Negligence Can be Steep
While minor medical negligence claims can cost a healthcare facility quite a bit, major claims may be worth thousands of Pounds. For example, in the case of medical negligence that led to a still birth cost a hospital £45000.
The case dates back to around April 2002, and it took years for it to conclude. So, along with hefty compensations that may need to be paid out, there is also the burden of dealing with years of legal battling. However, if you’re the victim, you will feel like pursuing your claim no matter what the cost and time you have to spend on it.
Medical Negligence Claims Require Legal Expertise
Hiring a solicitor is the best way for you to go about making your claim against medical negligence. You simply can’t afford to make claims of this kind on your own because there are many technicalities and claims that apply. A solicitor with experience in this field will be your best guide.
Your solicitor will also be able to advise you regarding how much you can claim for medical negligence you or your family may have suffered. The solicitor will chalk out the path through which he or she will proceed and you will be briefed regarding this.
Understanding Technicalities Can Motivate You
If you can understand the technicalities, it’s worth delving into them in order to follow what is going on. This often helps when you know you are going to be dealing with a lengthy procedure. Some people tend to be disappointed when they don’t see any end in sight. However, a good solicitor will tell you what your chances are in winning the case with a decent compensation.
When you have suffered at the hands of medical professionals, you have the right to file a claim and hope for compensation that matches the negligence. Sometimes, you may have to file a claim for someone who has suffered but is not even alive to seek justice. This makes your effort even nobler.
Moral victory matters more in such cases as opposed to monetary compensation, and even if you are in for a long battle, you ought to stick with it to seek justice. By doing so, you can prevent other patients from facing harm.
Suffering from abdominal pains, a 17-year-old girl was taken to the Cape Town Melomed Hospital and diagnosed with a bladder infection, only to give birth to a baby boy a few hours later.
Now Micaela October’s father believes the private hospital group was negligent in not picking up that his daughter was in labour.
Eddie October said if he had not asked for a second opinion shortly after Micaela was seen at Melomed Hospital on May 10, she would probably have given birth at home.
But Melomed Hospital has denied that Micaela was misdiagnosed. It said she had a bladder infection, and at the time she was seen by doctors at the hospital she was not in labour and her membranes had not ruptured.
The family were aware that Micaela was pregnant, but did not know when she was due. An ultrasound had been booked for May 10.
During the night of May 9, Micaela complained about pain, and at about 1am her family took her to Melomed Hospital.
October said: “The doctor said she had a bladder infection and gave her only a few Panado tablets. We were given a script to buy antibiotics. We went home, but Micaela still complained of the sharp abdominal pains.”
Later that same day, she went to a private doctor for an ultrasound, and was told she was 32 weeks pregnant.
He recommended that she make a booking for antenatal care with the Mitchells Plain Maternity Obstetrics Unit.
After she was examined at the unit, she was told she was already in labour. She was then transferred to the Mowbray Maternity Hospital where she gave birth to a boy weighing 1.9kg. He has been named Mason.
Melomed spokesman Randal Pedro confirmed that the teenager had been treated at the hospital’s emergency unit for “urinary tract infection in accordance with history given and the findings of the symptoms, tests and examination conducted”.
Pedro said at the time of the examination there were no signs that Micaela was in labour. But October is unconvinced.
“Should she not have gone to the Maternity Obstetrics Unit, I don’t know what would have happened to her – she probably would have given birth at home, something which would have put her and the baby’s life in danger as none of us at home are trained to deliver babies.”
Pedro said that after investigation of the complaint, the hospital found Micaela’s GP had also not found any signs of active labour.
“And in keeping with the advice of the doctor at Melomed Mitchells Plain he urged the patient to book at the MOU for antenatal care as soon as possible.”
This article is courtesy of IOL News.
Once you have established with your personal injury solicitor that you have a strong case and it is worth filing for compensation, you will need to discuss your options regarding how best to fund your case. Medical negligence is a complicated matter and whilst it is common that most parties hope to resolve it as quickly as possible and avoid taking it to trial, the legal costs can quickly build up. There are a number of options to consider, which are outlined below but your solicitor should be able to explain each one in more detail as well as inform you of the pros and cons to each one.
Private Funding
This essentially means funding your claims yourself using your own money. You will need to have a good idea or an estimate of how much the whole procedure is likely to cost, so that you can prepare for it in advance. Your solicitor will be able to advice you on this matter.
Legal Aid
Legal aid or public funding is available for people experiencing extreme financial hardship, who are likely to win the case and receive enough compensation to make pursuing the claim justifiable.
Legal Expenses Insurance
Some insurance policies cover legal expenses, but this is not always the case. It is however worth checking, as it could benefit you significantly.
No-Win-No-Fee arrangements
These conditional fee agreements are becoming increasingly popular and more and more personal injury solicitors are offering them as a funding option. They essentially mean that if you don’t win the case you don’t have to pay your own legal fees. You are sometimes however, required to pay a certain amount on the beginning whilst your solicitor decides whether or not your medical negligence case is strong enough to be worth taking on.
The inquest is over, but there is no peace, no moving on, for the family of Maria De Jesus. They wonder how they will ever come to terms with her death, for to do that there must be acceptance, some sort of understanding.
But Maria’s death, the manner of it, makes no sense at all. Admitted to hospital at five months’ pregnant with severe abdominal pains, she was told she had appendicitis and needed her appendix removed.
Why, her grieving husband and three children ask themselves, were two trainee surgeons permitted to carry out the procedure without a consultant present? And how on earth did they manage to mistake her ovary for the appendix and remove the wrong organ?
Why, when it was established in a laboratory that the organ was not an appendix at all, did the lab technicians not bother to notify anyone of this fact?
Why did they log the details of this catastrophic mistake on to a computer, as though it were a routine report, and forget about it? Why did the person who commissioned the report never bother to seek out the results? From the day she was admitted on October 21, 2011, until her death three weeks later on November 11, Mrs De Jesus remained in severe pain and was in and out of intensive care.
Yet it was not until two days before her death that a consultant finally looked at her notes and stared in disbelief at the laboratory report stating there was ‘no appendix tissue’ present.
But by then it was too late. Mrs De Jesus had sepsis and, after suffering a miscarriage, died on the operating table hours later during a second operation to remove the appendix.
She was just 32, a beautiful mother-of-three who had been excitedly awaiting the birth of her fourth child.
Last week, Mrs De Jesus’s husband, Adelino, listened to the harrowing details of his wife’s last weeks at her inquest in East London. He remains shell-shocked. Mr and Mrs De Jesus’s sons Pedro, nearly 17, and Andre, who has just turned 16, are full of anger. Their ten-year-old sister Catarina, who has inherited her mother’s beauty, has retreated into herself.
My wife didn’t stand a chance,’ says Mr De Jesus. ‘She spent the last three weeks of her life in agony. She was beautiful, full of life, a wonderful mother. I can’t believe what they did to her. She was treated like an animal. I believe she was unlawfully killed.’
The details of Maria De Jesus’s mistreatment at Queen’s Hospital in Romford, Essex, are truly shocking.
Neglect, disregard for protocols, incompetence, a total absence of inter-departmental communication. Everything that could go wrong, did go wrong.
Her family want the full story told because they believe the medical staff responsible for the catastrophic errors that led to her death should be held accountable.
Originally from Funchal on the Portuguese island of Madeira, Mr and Mrs De Jesus married in 1996 and moved to England in 2005 to seek a better life for their family. The recession in Portugal had hit them badly. Mrs De Jesus’s full name was Maria Joao; in England she became known as Maria.
Initially, the couple found work with a family in South London, with Maria working as a nanny and her husband doing chauffeuring.
But living in London was expensive and, in 2007, the family moved to a spacious house in Becontree, Essex, and Maria started work as a teaching assistant at a local school.
On Friday, October 21, 2011, and five months’ pregnant, Mrs De Jesus began feeling unwell at work. Her husband took her to a walk-in centre, where she was told she needed hospital treatment.
On arrival at Queen’s Hospital in Romford, Essex, she was admitted. ‘There was uncertainty as to what was wrong,’ recalls Mr De Jesus.
‘The next day, the doctors said they needed to operate on her kidneys, then, the day after that, on the Sunday, they said they needed to take her appendix out.’
Mr De Jesus and his wife’s sister, Ana Caldeira, were at the hospital with Maria before she went into theatre.
‘We were told it would be a 30-minute procedure,’ recalls Ms Caldeira, a 35-year-old teacher at a special needs school and mother-of-two.
‘But Maria Joao went in at 3pm and didn’t come out till 6pm and was taken straight to intensive care.
We had no idea the operation was being done by trainee surgeons, without a consultant present.
When we later found this out we were profoundly shocked and disbelieving.
‘One of the consultants said he needed to talk to us. He said he’d been called in during the middle of the operation because the other surgeons had cut her uterus accidentally and they needed to stop the bleed. The blood loss meant she also needed a blood transfusion.’
Mrs De Jesus spent the next eight days between intensive care and the maternity ward. ‘She felt very unwell,’ says Mr De Jesus. ‘She was vomiting, her heartbeat was up, she was heavily medicated on painkillers.’
But Mrs De Jesus was declared fit to be discharged on October 31. On the same day, the results of the tests on the organ that had been removed were put onto a computer system accessible to hospital staff.
But in fact, the inquest heard, laboratory staff had first become aware the organ was not an appendix about four days before that, around October 27.
‘I just can’t understand how nobody said anything,’ says Mr De Jesus. ‘It seems incredible to me.’ If someone had been notified, Mrs De Jesus might have been saved. As the coroner at Mrs De Jesus’s inquest recorded in his narrative verdict: ‘The absence of protocols for reporting adverse histopathological findings resulted in the loss of a window of opportunity to provide treatment to the deceased that could have affected the outcome.’
Mrs De Jesus spent the next eight days between intensive care and the maternity ward. ‘She felt very unwell,’ says Mr De Jesus. ‘She was vomiting, her heartbeat was up, she was heavily medicated on painkillers.’
But Mrs De Jesus was declared fit to be discharged on October 31. On the same day, the results of the tests on the organ that had been removed were put onto a computer system accessible to hospital staff.
But in fact, the inquest heard, laboratory staff had first become aware the organ was not an appendix about four days before that, around October 27.
‘I just can’t understand how nobody said anything,’ says Mr De Jesus. ‘It seems incredible to me.’ If someone had been notified, Mrs De Jesus might have been saved. As the coroner at Mrs De Jesus’s inquest recorded in his narrative verdict: ‘The absence of protocols for reporting adverse histopathological findings resulted in the loss of a window of opportunity to provide treatment to the deceased that could have affected the outcome.’
Ms Caldeira adds: ‘We still don’t know why a consultant wasn’t present at the original operation. I think those two trainee surgeons who operated on her were arrogant, they thought they could do it by themselves.’
That day, Mrs De Jesus underwent the drainage procedure. It seemed to go well, but at midnight that night, Mr De Jesus took a call from the hospital saying to come to the hospital immediately.
He and Maria’s sister, who was staying at the house, made a frantic dash by car and when they arrived, were told that Maria was miscarrying. ‘She was moaning and crying and shaking,’ says Ms Caldeira. ‘I begged them to do a Caesarean but they refused.’
Mr De Jesus recalls the moment his baby son was born. ‘I held him and I felt that he was moving, that he was alive, but then the staff took him away from me and told me he was dead, that he had been stillborn.’
Maria, Ana, and Adelino were left alone for 45 minutes while staff dealt with another emergency.
‘Maria began to deteriorate during this time,’ says Mr De Jesus. ‘There was blood everywhere, her oxygen levels were low, her eyes were closed, she was gasping for breath. Suddenly lots of people were coming in and out.
‘The senior consultant came back and said they had a feeling Maria had septicaemia and they had to do something about it.’
Ms Caldeira goes on: ‘I asked one of the surgeons if Maria could die and he replied no, there was no life risk. The only thing that might happen was that they would have to remove the uterus.’
There followed an awful scene in which, Ms Caldeira says, the medical team were shouting at her sister to sign the consent form, when she was clearly in no fit state to do so. ‘I kept saying, let her husband sign, but they wouldn’t listen. I don’t know why, perhaps because Adelino doesn’t speak very good English.
‘Eventually I forced a pen between her finger and said: “If you don’t sign the form, you’ll die,” and she scribbled something down. We said goodbye to her as she was taken down to theatre. She was semi-conscious.’
Mr De Jesus and Ms Caldeira drove home to check on the children, but at 8am there was another phone call from the hospital, requesting that Mr De Jesus return immediately.
‘I said to Ana: “Oh my God, something bad has happened”, but Ana tried to reassure me that the operation had not gone as well as it should have, that it was no worse than that.’
But Ana, too, had a feeling about it and as soon as she and Mr De Jesus were shown into a room she said: ‘Just tell me, is she alive or dead?’ ‘The consultant replied: “I’m so sorry, she passed away”,’ recalls Ms Caldeira.
‘Adelino was so distraught he started having chest pains and had to be put in a bed. The doctors later explained that the operation had gone well, her heartbeat was fine, and they had removed the appendix, which had a pelvic abscess around it.
‘Then suddenly without warning she went. She had gone into cardiac arrest. They tried everything to bring her back but her septicaemia was so advanced it had caused all her major organs to shut down.’
Mr De Jesus and Ana returned home and Ana went upstairs while the children’s father told them their mother was dead.
‘I don’t want to talk about that moment,’ says Mr De Jesus. ‘All I will say is that they were all very insistent that they wanted to see her.
‘I took them to her and she was all swollen and looked nothing like herself. It offered them no comfort whatsoever — quite the contrary.’
The loss of Maria has, of course, devastated the family. Adelino, who faces no prospect of being able to work with three children to look after, is desolate and visits her grave every day.
‘Maria Joao was the heart of our family,’ he says. ‘She was so beautiful and fun-loving and did things with the kids like white water rafting. Easter and Christmas and birthdays were big occasions for us and Maria would cook and organise everything.
‘The three children must go through life without a mother. Pedro and Andre feel very angry at her treatment.
‘Catarina will go through her teenage years, getting married, having children, without her mother. She was her mother’s girl. We will never get over this. She is irreplaceable.’
There remains a lot of anger. ‘No one was leading Maria Joao’s case, no one was in charge,’ says Ms Caldeira. ‘It was being handed over, passed around. There was no communication, no organisation.
‘The treatment by some of those doctors was appalling, but amid all the bad there was good as well, good doctors, who did their best. But it was too late.’
Maria’s son, Pedro, says simply: ‘All those who contributed to my mother’s death should be jailed.’
So what, if any, action will be taken against these members of staff, and against the hospital?
Queen’s Hospital has admitted liability and Mr De Jesus’s solicitor, Andrew Harrison, of Sternberg Reed, whom Mr De Jesus says has gone ‘above and beyond the call of duty’ for the family, is negotiating a compensation settlement.
Mr Harrison says no fewer than eight members of staff at the hospital are under investigation by the General Medical Council, their cases pending.
Mr De Jesus is upset with the way the hospital has dealt with the tragedy. Some seven months after his wife’s death, he received a copy of the hospital’s ‘maternal death investigation’, which failed to answer many of the family’s questions. ‘Nobody has ever come to this house to talk to us and say sorry,’ he says. ‘We finally got a letter of apology last Saturday, after the inquest ended.’
In a statement, Averil Dongworth, chief executive of Barking, Havering and Redbridge Hospitals Trust, said: ‘I would once again like to apologise unreservedly to Mrs De Jesus’ family for their loss.
‘The staff involved in Mrs De Jesus’ care have been deeply affected by her death.
‘An extensive Trust-wide action plan was drawn up following Mrs De Jesus’ death in 2011 to ensure that such a tragic incident will not happen again.’
No amount of compensation will lessen the family’s anguish at Maria death, and the way she died.
‘If she’d fallen ill and died then we would be devastated but would have to accept it,’ says Ms Caldeira.
‘But this, we can never come to terms with. Watching my sister suffer in those last few weeks, I cannot explain how I feel about it.
‘Hospitals are there to save lives. In Maria Joao’s case, all they did was prolong her death.’
This article is courtesy of the Daily Mail.
