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Catalogue of errors at GP surgery led to baby death
A CORONER has ruled the death of a little baby with Down's Syndrome was directly caused by a drugs overdose after a faulty prescription ordered her unknowing mum to give her 10 times too much.
A catalogue of errors at the Sheffield Road GP Practice in Barnsley led to the incorrectly labelled medicine frusemide being dispensed to Maxine Winfield for four-month-old Abbie Jones.
Read the full story - including failure to see patient was 'serious error'; every second treasured with Down's Syndrome tot; key witness 'unfit to give evidence'; receptionist vague over circumstances - only in today's Star
She inadvertently gave it to her daughter on around four or five occasions, causing irreversible brain damage which led to her death in June 2006.
Following a lengthy and complex inquest which spanned 17 days and heard from 45 witnesses, Coroner Christopher Dorries said he was satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that Abbie's death was "primarily due to the effects of a substantial overdose of frusemide".
Recording a narrative verdict he said: "The overdose arose because a prescription was wrongly issued which increased Abbie's medication tenfold.
"The prescription was wrongly generated on the surgery computer as a result of established or recognised procedures not being followed within the practice."
Mr Dorries said he found "no evidence at all" of impropriety from Maxine throughout the course of events.
The findings will be welcome for the mum-of-four, who was driven out of her home in Worsbrough in the aftermath of the tragedy.
Locals on the estate had come to an unthinkable conclusion - she had given her baby too much medicine on purpose because she had Down's Syndrome.
Chants of 'Kiddie Killer' tormented her at home and when out in town, making the lives of her and her two older children hell until they were forced to move to Gilroyd.
The years since Abbie's death have also seen her former partner - Abbie's dad Neil Jones - take his own life.
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