Medical blunders make my blood boil
We have no choice but to entrust our most precious things into the expert care of others. Our children.
We trust people to provide specialist care when what is needed goes beyond our capabilities.
We hand it over without even questioning the skills of the doctor, the nurse, the teacher or the pharmacist.
It's all we can do, isn't it? Where will not trusting anyone with the care of your children get you - or more importantly, them?
Only imagine the sheer agony and self-recrimination two grieving mothers must now be going through, after putting their child's care into someone else's hands, only to watch their child die as a result.
This week, a Sheffield coroner's court finally ruled that baby Abbie Jones died because she had been wrongly prescribed medication. The dose was way too high - and rather than helping her, it killed her Her mother Maxine, who had been labelled a baby-killer by her neighbours, now knows the truth is out.
But it won't bring her baby back, nor will it stop her wishing she hadn't given Abbie the medicine; wishing she hadn't trusted.
Her feelings will be shared by the mother of Stockport 11-year-old Sam Linton, who died in December after his teacher failed to act swiftly enough when he suffered an asthma attack. This week a coroner ruled that had the teacher summoned medics to treat Sam, instead of leaving him gasping for breath in a corridor while she went to a meeting, he would have lived.
What now for those at the Sheffield Road GP practice in Barnsley, who prescribed the wrong dose of medication to Abbie? My blood boils when I read of memory lapses, details wiped from the surgery computer and a GP too psychologically ill to give evidence. All this must have significantly hampered the lengthy police investigation...and some of those facts surely merit further inquiries.
But the people responsible for these deaths; how do they sleep at night, knowing that they so badly broke the greatest bond of trust; the one parents create when place their child in your expert care?
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Friday 25 May 2012
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