DEAD CHILD IN HOSPITAL
Sorry...
So
that's all right then
Yesterday's
distressing story can be found at:
Today
the Coroner's verdic has been rather more widely reported, for example –
Coroner
John Pollard said: 'This suggests to me, quite powerfully, that Emma
had died some considerable time earlier.
'It
would seem that Emma was not monitored properly for several hours
before her death and that when her father held her, apparently 10
minutes after death, she was cold and stiff, signifying in fact she
had been dead for some considerable time. That is simply not
acceptable.
Recording
a narrative verdict Mr Pollard said there was a failure to recognise
and acknowledge the seriousness of Emma’s condition. He said: 'The
nursing and medical care of Emma fell below the standard that most
people would consider satisfactory.'
He
said the inevitable conclusion was that the care was ‘inadequate to
such a degree that it played a part in Emma’s death’.
Mr
Pollard added: 'If the observations had been performed more
accurately and the treatment instigated at an early stage, the
likelihood is that Emma would have survived.'
The
death is the latest in a series of scandals at the hospital since
2006, when Mr Pollard branded care ‘chaotic’ and ‘despicable’
after hearing four inquests into elderly patients in one day. Tariq
Mahmood, Tameside Hospital’s medical director, said of this latest
incident: 'Emma was a regular patient in our Children’s Unit and we
knew her family well. We would like to send our heartfelt sympathies
to them during this difficult time.
'This
has been a lengthy and thorough investigation by the coroner which we
have fully supported and we accept his findings today.
'We
acknowledge that the standard of care which we gave Emma was not
acceptable and there were errors of judgement by individual members
of staff. We have apologised to Emma’s family for this failure...'
A
narrative verdict
A 'narrative
verdict' is
a verdict available to coroners in England and Wales following
an inquest.
In
such a verdict the circumstances of a death are recorded
without
attributing the cause to a named individual.
References
–
(2012) Coroner
slams Tameside Hospital over death of 12-year-old girl left for so
long in her bed that rigor mortis had set in, Manchester
Evening News,
7 July
Sutton,
A (2012) UK truly terrible story.
Victim
of atomised medical care? Conductive
World,
6 August
Labels: Cerebral palsies
posted by Andrew Sutton | August 07, 2012
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