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Hospital staff 'too busy' to save meningitis baby, inquest told |
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28 March 2008 |
A coroner has criticised the 'amazing' lack of staff on duty in a children's ward where an 11-month-old girl died after medics claimed they were 'too busy' to care for her properly.
The inquest is into the death of Macy Gilworth, who was admitted to Tameside General Hospital in Manchester, with suspected meningitis.
A coroner has criticised the 'amazing' lack of staff on duty in a children's ward where an 11-month-old girl died after medics claimed they were 'too busy' to care for her properly.
The inquest is into the death of Macy Gilworth, who was admitted to Tameside General Hospital in Manchester, with suspected meningitis. In the last hours of Macy's life, two doctors were covering the general, post-natal and children's wards. She had been taken to casualty in September 2006 after she developed red spots on her body, which would not disappear when pressure was applied, a common symptom of meningitis.
But one doctor made a mistake in her notes and a protocol for checking children with rashes was not followed, the inquest heard. A chart on the ward was never filled in for Macy, while there was a delay in getting blood test results.
Coroner John Pollard told the court: 'I will be writing to the chief executive to bring to her attention the staffing levels brought to light in this inquest, covering the hospital as a whole and in particular the children's ward.'
After the inquest Macy's mother, Nicola Gilworth of Ashton under Lyne said: 'We are suing the hospital for clinical negligence; our family has been treated like dirt by Tameside from day one.'
A spokesman for the hospital said that when Macy was admitted there were 'no clear signs' of meningococcal disease, even though those symptoms were the reason for Macy's parents to rush her to hospital.
'It seems outrageous that, even though Macy's parents noticed the symptoms, trained medical staff could not,' says Sandra Patton, a Clinical Negligence specialist of Kester Cunningham John. 'When parents with no medical training are being exhorted to watch out for the danger signs of meningitis, it's truly shocking that a hospital couldn't organize itself properly to do so.
'Macy's parents saw the signs and rushed her to hospital in the expectation that her life would be saved. But instead of reacting to the danger, once more we see the form-filling bureaucracy of the NHS failing its patient, and with disastrous results.'
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