07.08.12
12-year-old girl left dead in hospital bed
A coroner has attacked the unacceptable care given to a young girl with cerebral palsy who was left dead in a hospital bed for up to four hours.
Twelve-year-old Emma Stones died of blood poisoning at Tameside Hospital near Manchester, but may have survived if she had been observed and treated better, coroner John Pollard told her inquest.
Her parents are now considering legal action following a series of errors and failures in her care, including nurses who failed to monitor her every four hours through the night and the fact that no blood sample was taken due to an overworked senior registrar.
Dr Nelly Ninis, a consultant paediatrician at St Mary’s Hospital in London, had told the inquest there had been a “systems failure” at the hospital and that it was “probably” Emma would have survived had her symptoms been spotted and treated the evening before she died, according to the Manchester Evening News.
Although her parents were told she died just before 9am, the coroner said it was likely she had been dead “for some considerable time” before that, as rigor mortis had set in and she was ice cold when her father touched her.
He is reported as saying: “The nursing and medical care of Emma fell below the standard that most people would consider satisfactory.”
According to the Manchester Evening News, Tariq Mahmood, Tameside Hospital’s medical director, said: “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.
“The Children’s Service at Tameside Hospital treats thousands of children each year and we want to reassure patients and their families that the hospital has taken every possible step to prevent any re-occurrence.”
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